Walk On Water Or Drown
by UnagiKeki
Summary: First arc; if a Shinobi falls and the forest is empty, who left their blade in his back? Featuring tangible TentenOC, Genin gruesomnity, and... Gai-sensei's long-lost lover?
1. Prelude Before Overture

_Time is frozen all around them, shellacked in shades of gold._

_The battle isn't even close to over, but Ryuuichi is gone; that discarded headband is glinting in the corner of his vision, sparkling and hurting his eyes. A lot of things hurt, in fact, but for some reason his senses are stuck on the brilliance of the day around him, the metallic taste in his mouth._

_Suzuki is there, suddenly, and shadows worriedly convene when she screams. It's the blood she notices- Ryuuichi's blood. It's all over her hands as she fingers his broken limbs, mixed with his, splattered on the rocks he hit on the way down. His head stings; everything is slow, dull._

_Kazeki would like to close his eyes and die now, but somehow he knows that this moment will never let him go. So he stays awake to watch what happens, to see what becomes of them all._

_-----_

_A Konoha night is like nothing you've known. Memorials could be built to the poetry in it, the sweet stink of autumn grass and something unspeakably clandestine in the air. Fireflies dance on the horizon; lofty clouds waltz before the moon, which glares down as if deciding to spare us for one more night._

_Kazeki is thinking about all of this, when the wet towel hits him._

_It is a chilly, pre-Fall evening, and the shock is unbearable; his mouth opens in a half scream as water pours down the back of his neck, soaking his shirt and back._

_He is on his feet, armed, before Ryuuichi can even finish laughing._

_They cavort over rooftops in the secret way Shinobi children do, leaping for joy and searching for blood. Through other people's hung-up laundry and across endless rooftops they chase, laughing maniacally. It is just another day of being a boy in Konoha, a Shinobi boy with no concept of the wars of their fathers._

_But finally, like a rat is the perpetrator caught; Kazeki chases him up the side of a domed building, and suddenly there is only a cavernous leap in any direction, into the dark nothingness around the Hokage's Tower. They are at the top of the Hidden Leaf Village, with nowhere left to go but down._

_Kazeki catches the side of Ryuuichi's face with his foot, groping in the dark; the give goads him into delivering another kick, across his friend's knees. Ryuuichi falters for a second, and it's in this moment that Kazeki prepares a hand seal; but his opponent will have none of this, and strikes forward to grasp, with the speed of a viper. Kazeki's shoulder twists sickeningly in the socket as he is thrown into the air, tumbling into through the dark until his vertebrae squarely meets the solid steel handrail at the roof's edge. The sound reverberates through the night, through the chill air with odd acoustics; but without reaction, Kazeki grinds his palms on pebbles as he twists, swiftly, and heads straight back for Ryuuichi; from below, he sweeps into a kick as Ryuuichi searches. The rustle of cloth touches his ears, and it's just enough to point him in the right direction; with inches to spare, Ryuuichi takes a solid stance and flings up his forearm- and for a moment they are locked there, like samurai with crossed swords. Kazeki is unable to gain his footing, and Ryuuichi cannot neither relent his arm or counterattack._

_He'll remember this moment someday, he's sure._

_But in the next second Kazeki is plunging into open air; Ryuuichi has bolted away, before he has a chance to react. His face nearly scrapes the ground as he throws hand over hand and wrenches his body into a roll, landing with his legs pulled tightly to his heaving chest. Body tensed, he whirls to protect the blindspot that Ryuuichi is surely homing in on._

_But no attack comes from the dark; a cloud has passed over the moon, and Ryuuichi is gone. He's leapt off the top of the Tower, into the foggy and bottomless uncertainty of the dark._

_Pausing, Kazeki swears inwardly; for a second he remembers how he hates his friend's foolish bravery; hates that he lags where Ryuuichi blazes, hesitates where Ryuuichi simply jumps._

_But in the next second, the silence of the sleeping world is broken as Kazeki follows him over the railing, into the frightening descent._

_It seems like he's always chasing Ryuuichi, trying to make him come back from the edge of somewhere that Kazeki can never quite reach._

_----_

_There's a box in Kurenai's closet, with pretty beads tarnished by time; it was once dear to someone, as that someone was dear to her. But no one who saw Minami die has spoken of her since. The only time her name was mentioned by one of them, and only by one of them, was after the misty wake; it was a numb and apathetic morning, under a thick and ominous sky, one of the Black Sundays that come more than once a week to Konoha._

_The two genin stared at a dusty table, the sparse habitat in which a rare and lovely creature had once existed; the silence was onerous, and no one was comfortable. Ignoring the burning, concerned gazes of their adult companions, the two children looked around, making no contact that would betray feeling._

_Kurenai broke the awkwardness with a thick chortle, a grievous sound as she placed a woven grass box, turquoise and beaded, before her bent knees; kneeling, she was nearly at eye-level with the Genin, waiting to see distress. Hoping to see it, so she could comfort it._

_"Your teacher wanted you to have a few things," she explained needlessly, distractedly; she was looking for Minami in these children, searching for the delightful, dancing green eyes of the comrade who had climbed this horrid mountain with her; the female Jonin who seemed imbued with some lightness which allowed her to hover, untouched, above circumstance._

_But there was only absence, the lack of the team's other members sucking the meaning from her words._

_The ANBU katana was thin, almost nonexistent in her hands; it seemed right to give it to the boy, and the only gesture he had made during this meeting was to receive it. He held it before his body in an unshocked manner, inspecting it with a wordless respect. To the girl went a bright yukata, a summer festival dress that Gai had admired Minami in when he was a boy. He tried to imagine this dour, tousled-headed girl in the bright robe, and wondered what kind of smile she saved for when nobody was looking. He truly wondered if she would ever smile again._

_Minami had not been much, and hadn't left much behind; sweet folded things and a few dear possessions, and beside them two photographs: one of a young, orange-haired girl standing, mouth agape, between a fay looking blonde woman and a grinning, redheaded father; and the other of a few 'warm bodies' who were innocent enough to have fear in their eyes. Kurenai would keep this picture for herself, as Kazeki and Suzuki had their own copies. Heaped on the ground with grateful survival in their eyes, three Genin glanced up into the candid photograph, their sensei sprawled beside them in the grass._

_It seemed impossible, every time it happened; but people disappeared, leaving only their distorted faces on glossy paper and the wonderful times you had with them heavy on your mind._

_Kazeki left, and then Gai. Kurenai might have been alone, Suzuki was so quiet; but as the red-eyed woman gave the room a final glance, basket beneath her arm, the little girl who would become another name on the Shinobi monument, just as they all would, spoke up:_

_"Would Minami-sensei want to kill Ryuuichi, or just me?"_

_----_

_The world seems brittle, as though the night sky will shatter with dawn at any moment._

_A little girl is waiting, not knowing what she will become._

_He actually came; she hoped against hope that he wouldn't, to calm the butterflies breaking from their cocoons in her stomach. But he is there, hovering like a phantom, too wonderful to be believed; his eyes are sharp, cutting through the night and leaving no reality between their gazes._

_There is no world without him. This is what she tells herself as she follows him, silently, past the village gates and into the hills and dales of the unknown._

_Ah, yes, how fragile and tender the evening- just like a young girl._

Prequel completed.


	2. Prayers

**AN: Ah, hello. If you're wasting time reading this, I'm gonna let you know some things right off the bat. **

**1. I have to establish Tenten as a weak character, among many variations of other personalities. She's going to end up the most kickass one of them all, so bear with me. This chapter was torture to write...**

**2. I love a flamer, as well as constructive feedback. Just don't get belligerant about it; it's embarrassing.**

**3. I have some writing experience, and am not trying to step on any character's shoes.**

**4. If you see inconsistencies, please trust that I'm going to resolve it by the end. This thing is complete in my head, and getting written slowly.**

**... Yeah. Enjoy, I guess.**

----

We have too tell you how Squad 14 fell apart, before we can tell you if it ever came back together again. We'll look at the mission dossier, the offal report that's collecting mildew somewhere in the archives of Konoha's damned and done records. It says more than Kazeki will tell you, more than Suzuki dares betray aloud- and why the third member of their team was lost, almost as surely as the specific piece of paper is if you went to search it out; it's overshadowed by darker tales, more humbling disasters.

"C-RANK: ID #34521134

Squad: Minami, Izanagi- Yoshida Ryuuichi, Sabaku Kazeki, [noname] Suzuki

Contracted by: Konoha [Intercept suspected turncoat in Black Swamp district, Ame no Kuni, before possible rendezvous and information exchange]

Mission: FAILED

* Izanagi, killed; Yoshida, killed; remaining genin survive. Traitor nonexistent, appeared to be a trap. No known leads or motives, and no malignant parties identified."

Nowadays there's a big, angry slash through the part of the sentence about Yoshida, but that's the gist of it.

What the report does't't say is who killed Izanagi Minami. It does't tell you that the forest was dead and silent when they walked in, or why Kazeki gets shuddering pains through his shoulders to this day; it does't tell you why a member of Akatsuki was present when Izanagi was impaled, but was not the killer.

It does't tell Kazeki, Suzuki, or any other ninja child you're going to read about why their world had to fall down the way it did- and to tell the truth, there isn't really explanation for it that can be found on this earth.

----

ARC 1

"_Walk __on __Water __or __Drown"_

"I heard there are going to be rookies!"

"Hmm," was Tenten's response. The weapons fled from her hands and found their mark, the resound of their impact soothing. The birds Neji was counting rose up from the trees not at this, but as a thick and unspeakably gawky teenager came meandering through the brush. Lee always looked stern, and thus looked always laughable. Tenten couldn't have imagined a worse combination of traits; her teammate was kind of like a garish and out-of-season Christmas tree, somehow unbelonging no matter how he was clad. Not that he made an effort to camouflage…

Tenten had a way of looking critically on others, if only to herself. She was fourteen and already knew everything.

And so came the walking Fashion Disaster- who proceeded to seat himself. There was a sickening crack, an odd squelching sound, and soon the forest rang with indignant cries: Lee had sat down on Tenten's backpack, causing her bento box to crack straight in half.

"DINGDONG!" she shouted with strange vehemence. "OF ALL THE PLACES ON EARTH TO PUT YOUR ASS-"

Although at first stunned by her rage, Lee quickly apologized as Tenten continued to yell over him. He was at the same time actively trying to both bow and wipe the unattractive rice stains and soy sauce from his skin-tight spandex.

"You're picking all of that up! There's gonna be ants now!"

"Tenten? Temper tantrums only make you sound more immature." taunted Neji's taut, monk-like voice.

Still pleading, Lee began scooping the sticky mess from the inside of her satchel: "I did not mean- ACK!"

"Get out of my bag, you creep!"

"I was just trying to-"

In jerking the bag from his hands, Tenten effectively scattered the meal even further; even worse, personal affects began to rain. Bandages, weapons, scrolls, and the paraphernalia of any teenaged girl went flying.

"NOW LOOK WHAT YOU DID!"

"I will-" Lee began, dropping down to scoop up the various articles. The first thing he picked up was, unbeknownst to him, a sanitary napkin.

"… AAAAHHH!! PUT THAT DOWN!!" Tenten shrieked. Before everyone's favorite green beast could react, however, the girl cuffed him sharply on the cranium. Stunned, he tumbled onto his haunches; papers of various natures scattered from his fall, which Tenten scrambled to catch as they floated gracefully to Earth. Trying to be helpful, Lee grasped one and looked down at it momentarily- only to be flung headlong onto the ground and danced upon. Neji would endure about two or three seconds of listening to this, before exploding.

Sure enough, Lee's pleas for mercy were soon cut off by: "WILL YOU KINDLY SHUT YOUR MOUTHES!?" (There! Let it be known that he _could_ ask nicely for things!) The sound of Neji's special Baby-Kicking Mode engaging was enough to return relative calm to Team Gai- at least long enough for the guys to talk.

Neji and Lee had an excellent relationship, as we all know: Neji glared at Lee, and Lee just went around doing his own thing. This was the aforementioned Hyuuga's relationship with pretty much everyone, but so be it. (Neji was pretty bored with beating Lee up, unlike Tenten. He and Lee left each other alone, in that unconfrontational guy kind of way, until they needed to borrow money)

"… So what were you saying, Lee?" the lavender-eyed boy inquired softly. His Byakugan gazed, fixedly, into the tangled treetops above them all.

"There are going to be rookies in our midst!", he immediately yelped; he was also actively staring into space, picking the lint balls from his rumpled green bodysuit. One nostril was trickling blood, and his left eye was swelling rapidly.

"They have trained under Kakashi, and apparently returned from an A-rank mission in one piece!"

"Phh. Who cares?", was Tenten's instant reply; more kunai slammed the wooden target.

"Well, they must be something, if their sensei considers them eligible for the great Chunin exams!"

"Or maybe he's just another overconfident, bullheaded Jonin who wants to get his little burdens killed off!", she quickly shot back, her tone sharp with willful and childish frustration. If she'd had a little more substance, maybe you could have acknowledged her feelings. But alas-

"Tenten- take your angst somewhere out of my earshot." came the stern scolding of the boy whom she had once admired, once watched for any sign of vulnerability towards love. In the turn of his head and the irate set of his features, Tenten could no longer see anything endearing in Neji- or any reason for him to be superior.

"You're one to talk about angst! Why can you be rude to us all the time, but I'm not allowed to get a little cheesed off once in a while?"

"Please." Neji scoffed, completely disregarding her comment. "You're too juvenile to even converse with. Stop yelling, and maybe I'll acknowledge you…"

"You are being… kind of rude, Tenten." Lee broached, brow creasing; the limitless patience he normally possessed seemed to be under fire, and it just made Tenten angrier to see him morph; even the lowly, freakish Lee was looking down on her now.

"You- you guys are so full of shit!" exploded from her mouth, almost before the words fully registered in her mind; a torrent of anger was suddenly pouring from her, and she had no idea where it was coming from.

(Actually, she did.)

"I hate this team! I hate _being __here_ and, and-! " And then came out, desperate, pealing:

_"Ryuuichi would understand!"_

And before Neji could laugh, say 'oh, Christ' or even waggle his eyebrows; before Lee could do anything, she fled. It was all so ridiculous- she knew it, but the quiet, eking sorrow was becoming too much to bear. A little girl at heart, tired of carrying alone, Tenten ran. Birds screamed from the trees, and she no longer cared.

In the wake of her absence, Neji and Lee sat in silence for a few moments; there was only respect in Lee's, but Neji had quickly dismissed the incident from his mind.

"Neji, we should go talk to her-" Lee stammered.

"Why?" he snapped. "Her little boyfriend dies, and suddenly she cops an attitude? It's been a bloody year, and she's still carrying on-"

"But she does not usually act that way! Something is deeply hurting her-"

"Lee." the word shot, a command, from his mouth. "She has to get over it. No coddling is going to help her- no one coddled you when your mother and father died, did they? Do you snap at me and Tenten for it?"

The mention of his long-passed parents stabbed Lee deeply enough to silence him for a moment in which Neji rose, leaving him seated and staring at where his teammate's back had disappeared.

In the years that would follow, Lee would curse himself in his head for not chasing after her. He would swear on the dead son in his arms, and scream to the moon until his throat bled that he hadn't tried to save Tenten from the monster of her own insecurity. But he did let her run that day, far from where they could have reached out and pulled a weeping and aching young girl back to her senses.

Only he and Neji would know, when she was gone, how they could have rescued Tenten from the edge.

----

Gaara lay quietly, like a cat in repose, at the top of an arroyo.

He had been walking in the desert for some time now, and had sat down; he wasn't fatigued, but his bones seemed to have been bleached. He had no more desire to walk, and instead lay down in his element.

He could hear screaming from the dunes nearby.

It turned out to be a small rodent, caught in the jaws of a dastardly and hellish-looking predator that resembled a lobster on steroids. Such were the products of this barren wasteland: beings which sought only to kill and eat, disappearing into the faceless sands once they'd had their fill.

The mammal was screaming, literally shrieking as the carnivore crushed it's back legs within it's pinscered mouth; one foot hung, limply, off to the side in a dislocated position. It's peals soared, again and again, into the thin, gritty air. With ominous silence, Gaara rose.

A slap of sand caused the predator to shrink away; another claw of sediment rose up, and smacked the creature so sharply that released the rodent. Over and over it tumbled, down the side of the dune, before slamming into a gradiated slab of sandstone. An unearthly shrill came from the thing as Gaara pelted it again and again with packed sand, huge bullets as heavy as iron. When black blood finally soaked the ground, he stopped and stared.

Huge ears shivering, the liberated rodent regarded Gaara from a hunched position; it's burnt-soufflé coloring almost camouflaged it against the endless landscape. There was no water for miles, lest you could suck it from the piney skin of the occasional cactus.

Gaara raised his hand; an extension of his will, the sand found it's target and smashed the small animal to an unrecognizable mass.

And he wondered whether it was his will, or if it was really worth it at all.

-----

The priests were gone; the sun had faded, and the temple was deathly quiet.

Revealed by the spark of a single match, the dark-haired girl simply bit her lip; cupping the warm flame though no wind pervaded, she lit a single joss stick before the altar. Cinnamon-sandalwood soon filled the thick air, and a child named Darkness shot a prayer out into the universe.

Naruto waited very quietly until the girl had disappeared; he hadn't known anyone else aware of the aged temple's location, this one which he sought out on his sleepless nights. Long after she was gone, he stood before the small, rock altar, smelling cinnabar and wondering what kind of ceremony he had invaded.

The night offered no one any answers.

----

The log before him split in two, almost faster than he could acknowledge; he very nearly went cross-eyed trying to watch them, as their ends struck him squarely in the face.

Kazeki dipped earthward, and finally fell right out with resounding limpness. He was tired; tired of waiting, of fighting the same person every day, tired of itching to grow up and do something besides this. Itching to prove something.

The fight was over; Suzuki knew it. It's the only reason he'd been open long enough to take a full-facial blow. But she watched him stand, brush the dust off himself, as though waiting for something. It was always difficult to tell, in that only a few words passed between them on any given day: Suzuki was not given to excessive words, and Kazeki was done explaining himself.

But of Konoha's Genin, you would never meet another two who knew each other better.

They shared a parting nod, and then he was gone. Suzuki would do something, anything- it never occurred to him to ask her, until the next he saw her. The sun would rise and set on Konohagakure, and the bloody world would stop for no mouse. Shinobi would fall, empires would rise; the next generation of avengers would crawl back up, hearts set.

It had been a year since their sensei had perished, and Kazeki realized how weak he truly was.

A hawk was circling lazily above, a beacon which Sarutobi Asuma, Hatake Kakashi, and Yuuhi Kurenai would soon recognize. It hearkened the hunger under each Shinobi-hopeful's skin- the chance to excel, to burst from their bland existences and taste the true horror of the fight.

The Konoha Chunin Exams were soon to commence- along with the beginning of a true epic.

----


	3. Eat, Drink, and Be Merry

**AN: ... It has occured to me that I cannot be a fanfic writer and detached from my readers. So, here's my attempt to warm up to you all.**

**I'm UnagiKeki, and I am unreliability personified (see profile). I used to write, but fell off the wagon because I actually had to get out and develop a personality. I'm still working on that, but now I'm writing fanfiction again for the hell of it. This one features the OC I got around to making and the OC of my 'friend', who is chronically Internet deprived. I don't know. I just missed the fame, the glory, and the flamers. So even though I have no time to scratch my watch or wind my butt, I'm glad to be back to writing... But Shippuuden scares the hell out of me, and I'm afraid to make Naruto look dumb, so I'll try to avoid writing about him. But how can you?**

**My story's beginnings are usually weak, so I thank you for your fortitude. I promise it'll pay off! Arigatou gozaimasu! *bows***

* * *

_"Oh, that is most certainly not a fish!"_

_The coolie's gruff voice was high with surprise, as he leaned down to examine, from the end of the rickety pier, the small bundle floating towards him. It was a young girl, with wide eyes drained of tears and salt-swollen hands clinging to a half-deflated raft made of animal skins._

_The stench of dying seafood was everywhere; he reached out as she drifted by, and her cold little body flew up his arm as though she were a monkey. In the minutes that followed, his comrades convened, their hands tangled in the nets and their homey eyes wide with concern. He just held the wet and trembling little girl against him, thinking of how much thinner she was than his own son, just her age._

_"Where did you come from, Sweetie?"_

_"Hell", was all she would say._

_----_

Naruto was out the door before the ramen cup hit the trashcan. Mind you, it bounced off and splattered on the wall- but still, he was bookin'.

Tearing down the back flight of stairs, the neighbors would testify that all they saw was an orange flash. They hardly even knew it was Naruto, until he was at the bottom floor, bleeding from the face and screaming about a lawsuit. Sweet, histrionic Naruto had tripped on Aji-baa-chan's calico cat, who was older than time and would never again sleep on the stairs. But Naruto kept yelling until at length someone finally gave the boy something edible, and then headed off on his merry way. For the time being.

Crisis averted, Naruto scanned the streets in his usual morning duties: see if someone had dropped anything valuable outside the _izayaka_ bar down the street, feel around in the collection box at the neighborhood temple before the old lady nuns could catch him, write "I LOVE SAKURA" on some freshly-poured concrete- you know, all that stuff that wouldn't get done if he wasn't around. Thank god for Naruto.

But he hurried, because today was an awfully special day. The Chunin Exams commenced, huzzah! Danger, adventure, thrill awaited, and he wasn't about to miss a bit of it, believe it!

----

And somewhere above the pampas grass that wound around the village gates, someone's voice was floating: "Amitaba, amitaba"- the traditional march of the dead.

----

"It smells like an armpit in here."

Kazeki glanced at Suzuki through the corner of his eye, thinking about how sparingly she spoke; at that point a line of elbows came jabbing directly into his ribcage, causing him to momentarily lose the fuel by which to speak. Bobbing between the heads of taller Shinobi, Suzuki appeared ever as unaffected, almost humorously so. She was cheerfully munching on a steamed meat bun, her left cheek obnoxiously filled.

Squad 14 had been standing amidst the tangle of Chunin Exam constituents for nearly a half an hour, which wasn't a trying period at all to endure- it was just that the guys who had been there for three hours were getting a little antsy. Everyone was jittery, in a steeled kind of way, and tension salted the air worse than any proliferance of body odor.

In violent usurping of their bored state, there suddenly appeared a zipping, crouched figure who was covered, apparently, by a rug made of several dead sheep. Kazeki caught a glimpse of only his single, unbandaged eye before the wake of the Genin's momentum caused him to lose his balance- and knock the bun out of his teammate's hand. It plunked, with a small and fat sound, onto the ground amidst feet. "BARBARIAN," Kazeki called after him, regaining his composture; Suzuki was utterly ignorant of the situation, as a small white dog had nuzzled up to her feet and was now consuming the food she had dropped. She seemed frozen in deciding whether to strangle Akamaru, or shae him until he let go of her food.

"… That is disgusting!" the gray-haired teen sounded off immediately at the dog. "What kind of irresponsible person lets you consume half-eaten things off of the floor!?"

"Dude," came the interference of a nearby Genin; the sharp-featured young boy wore a parka and a smug, and gave off an overwhelming aura of both animal dander and bullying confidence. "Five second rule." Akamaru gave an approving yip after this, as if he comprehended the all-consuming presence of bacteria.

"Don't come near me. I don't want to catch parvo." Kazeki huffed in a not-exactly whispering voice; he had an unnatural obsession against smaller mammals, which drove him over the edge of tolerability at times. OK, all the time. (He had the same excuse for disliking Academy students, shojou magazines, and babies: all too germy.)

Kiba just blinked. His team had wandered over from the far side of the pavillion, where the kids had been pretty scary. Now what had they found? "Freak," he pronounced, sneering.

"Says the kid with a fleabag on his head."

"MY DOG IS PERFECTLY SANITARY," Kiba tried to say very nicely. (It didn't come out quite that way, though.)

"There is no way! Do you know what that dog steps in, before he snuggles up to your face? Do you know that dogs spend ten minutes a day licking their ground-contaminated feet and drinking rusty, ringworm-infested water from puddles and lavatories before they _kiss you on the mouth_!?"

"Kiba-kun…" Hinata reminded from his elbow. Alas, it was too late- the heat had gotten to everyone, and it was juuust about, to borrow the phrase, 'clobberin' time'.

"What the hell do you know? Looks like someone needs to get out of the padded room more often!"

"At least mine is sprayed and disinfected! I'll bet you sleep with that, that thing, too-" Here Kazeki paused to shudder from head to toe, contemplating the horror of such an endeavor. "THEY GNAW OFF HUNKS OF THEIR OWN FLESH."

"Leave me the hell alone, or I'm _you're_ gonna be the one eating your own skin," Kiba snarled. "After I peel it off of your face. I hope you're not here for the Chunin exams, 'cause I'll be really bored once this is over!"

"… I'm sorry, what?"

"'Cause if preaching at people is your only weapon, you're gonna die before I get the chance to beat your ass up! Hinata, I think this exam is going to be easier than I thought." The last sentence carried over the boy's grimy shoulder, which he likely wiped mucus and dog drool upon, as the cowering young girl trailed behind her strutting teammate. Kazeki was left, standing and feeling stupid.

"I think I caught fleas just talking to him," he said, trying to salvage any measure of pride.

"We're all going to die of something." Suzuki reminded uselessly, her mouth full of meat. Kazeki, though, would probably be lynched.

With a heady breath that swelled his sparrow chest, Kazeki whirled to direct his 'manly-man' anger at some other worthy target. It was during this period, however, that another offense was dealt to this otherwise-unassuming Shinobi; without turning, Kazeki snatched the lingering hand behind him and gave it a stark twist. The popping of disjointed bones and a light cry of pain followed, before the attacker relented through the crowd.

"Okay, that's the second time I've been groped." our paranoid young friend aqusciesed, sighing. "Why is this line not moving?" That said, he ambled towards the splendid oak doors at the opposite end of the hall, Suzuki following errantly behind.

What Kazeki found at the break in the masses was a pair of scruffy, overly-self-confident Genin loitering in front of the testing center's entrance. The congregation of observers were keeping their distance, mulling over whether they really wanted to challenge these guys; the last guy who tried, a kid with obnoxious eyebrows, now sported a bloody lip and swollen nose. Great- dictatorships were rising, and the exam hadn't even begun yet.

SMACK! Yet another challenger fell before the two obstructing parties, or at least a girl named Tenten. She'd recovered from her tantrum a few days ago, and had trooped all the way to the testing facility, only to get slapped for standing up for her teammate. So violently was she thrown back on top of Lee that they very nearly ended up sharing a kidney. Of the two ominous figures before them was a scrawny young boy, huge kunai knives strapped to his back, who simply grinned over her prone form. His smile was both lecherous and cunning, and you knew instinctively that he couldn't be trusted. Moreover he seemed to be having a great amount of fun; in other words this formidable foe didn't look too inclined to be scooching along.

It was time, you see: time for a hero to come riding in!

And no, it certainly wasn't Kazeki; Uchiha Sasuke, in all his self-righteous glory, came posturing through the crowd with his cell wagging their tails behind them. The impertinent Genin prone to slapping girls stood up straight and stared down this new opponent hungrily; the testosterone content of the room sparked sharply as the two gravelly sized one another up. Lee was fairly boiling, not only fighting intent but instantanious infatuation towards the fair-headed young Genin who hovered confidently behind the Uchiha angstcake.

Focused as he was on giving the boy the evil eye, Sasuke jumped a mile when a hand fell on his shoulder. With a nonchalant confidence, a tall invader stepped up to the twin guardians of the doors. Tenten barely caught a glimpse of him as he laughed with the pair, before he began to walk off. Kotetsu and Izumi wandered off in their Henge forms, causing a murmur to rise up through the crowd of applicants.

By now Lee had scrambled to his feet, and was biding at the edge of the crowd with errant humiliation. His moment in the sun had been stolen! Broken _shojou_ hearts exploded around his shiny head like funerary fireworks. But then with the audacity of a boy with nothing to lose, Konoha's Green Beast shook himself off and strode over to where Haruno Sakura, to him, hovered like a magnificent goddess. Things actually could have gone well from here…I mean, there's always a sliver of a chance. To either effect, Suzuki was licking the crumbs from between her fingers as the fated pair first met, and she watched the interaction with silent contemplation.

"My name is Rock Lee! And I see that you are Sakura…"

----

It was all history from there- but Tenten wasn't paying attention to any of this.

"Hey," she called after the brunette who had sent the pair away; his long hair was twisted into a complicated knot, held to the back of his head by a single, silver pin; the gleam of it somehow portended, and Tenten stopped in midsentence. This was all she could see of the him beneath the brim of a wide, conical hat.

But he understood her, and answered without turning around. "They were Chunin in disguise. I told them one of their superiors sent me, asking them to report to the Hokage." And here he paused.

"They shouldn't be hitting girls as cute as you."

He proceeded out a side door, and she didn't follow; simply pleased, Tenten blushed bright pink and bit down on her knuckle, overcome. Neji was uncomfortably close to her by the time she recognized that he was present.

"Stay away from that Uchiha Sasuke kid. I never met anyone so rude… Lee's gone to pick a fight with him, so let's go fill out the waivers and hope we lose him."

"Yeah, let's!" she finished, a little too eagerly. Throwing a final glance over her shoulder, the now radiant and cloudy-headed Tenten bubbled with pleasure that chivalry was still alive in the world.

----

The Chunin exams were about making a man of you, no matter what gender you happened to be.

The foolish conversations above would be some of the last Naruto or any of his friends would experience for a while. They wouldn't all remember them, but these very interactions would in little ways end up saving them someday.

There were a lot of days left to most of their lives; none of them knew, or even considered that the Chunin exams might have cut any of them down at any time.

And that was the hardest part of growing up a Shinobi: recognizing, and then, battling, your own mortality. It was a lesson each and every one of them were soon to learn.

----

"… Neji? Tenten? … Where'd you go? ..."

Silence in the now-empty halls.

"Gai Squad!?... WELL, GEE, I LOVE YOU GUYS TOO! HAVE I NOT BEEN NEGLECTED ENOUGH TODAY!?"


	4. Nails

**AN: I know this fic isn't quality; I'm too tired to go in and make all of the relations with canon characters heartful. I just don't have the wherewithal, and it would hurt. I really, really hate this thing, but I did promise. So continue reading if you will, because it does get less self-centered and actually has a few good plot twists. Brining in a Kimimaro twist, so fangirls rejoice...**

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A tisket, a tasket, green and yellow basket-

The snake was creeping closer and closer to Konoha- but there were already malignant parasites circulating through Konoha, searching for the vulnerable gut.

----

"Gawdammit, Oboro. Hurry up!"

"We're gonna be here for three days," heckled the aforementioned Shinobi through his now-needless but still cool-looking breathing apparatus. "I drank a lot of soda. Gimmee a break."

We join these Ame-nin some time before they would trap Team Seven and Kabuto within their endurance-testing genjutsu. They were some of the best representatives from their misty country- but even the best Shinobi, for a half an instant every day, are vulnerable in some way. Knowing this, and knowing it quietly moreover, was a definite key to the forward carriage of the day's upcoming Chunin.

Basically: there's always a way to catch a ninja with his pants down.

Suigen, the one-eyed compatriot of Oboro, stood flightily with his back against a tree. The confined forest gave him the chills; it was so different from the Rain Country. There were definitely more places for a ninja to hide and rain down techniques- and that's what frightened and pleased him at the same time. The Forest of Death, even without that title, was terrifying enough.

And it was about to scar him for life.

And then the quiet sound came: the sheer, thin sound of a string being pulled taut. And suddenly the sound was raining from the unreadable, encompassing canopy above. The sheer fact that he couldn't recognize the noise was what threw Suigen off; he could tell the direction, straight above him, and his first instinct was to hide.

The forest suddenly resounded with a yell that sent chills down Suigen's spine; but Oboro's abrupt scream was cut off, as a line of chakra wire slammed taut against his throat and yanked him sharply through the underbrush,

Suigen's cry of "Oboro!" was silenced by the ghastly sound of his teammate's body striking, sharply, the base of one of the forest's towering, tangled trees. As he bolted in to examine the situation, kunai drawn and wishing the team hadn't gotten separated, he wondered why Oboro didn't leap up and cover his back; he seemed to be stuck to the side of the tree, legs pedaling in empty air. But he only wondered for a moment, because that's all he had, before he realized that Oboro's throat was being slowly cut.

His teammate was pinned to the tree, against gravity and his own weight, by a single piece of wire. It had already cut deeply into the soft flesh beneath his chin, and the pressure was only being worsened as Oboro struggled, beyond panic. It could have been a humorous moment, because Oboro was flailing less from panic and more in attempt to yank the pantsuit at his ankles back up, but Suigen was too freaked to notice.

Because he barely had enough time to take haven, before a massive scythe of wind came bursting through the trees behind, slamming dead into Oboro. Damn! The knives he alone trusted found worn paths to his hands, and he fired fluidly into the cloud of hubris as he leapt; he had seen the one who set off the jutsu, the boy. Suigen quickly leaped out of range, behind the tree his now silent teammate was still tied to.

As soon as he stepped there, the girl lunged from directly in front of him, where she had been crouched, over his head.

He saw the string in her hand, and instantly reacted to slice the damnable thing. Two throwing stars spun, expertly, from his fingers, aiming for the arc of wire that was closing around him; that done, he knew he was taking a risk, but nonetheless decided to activate a Bunshin jutsu. It might give him enough time to put some distance between what he knew now to be two attackers, at which point he could direct the clandestinity of the trees against them.

But chakra suddenly sparked up the strings; Suigen just barely managed to form the last seal, dancing away from the ricocheting weapons. As the sopping mist clones began to rise from the damp earth, the desolate whizzing came once more.

Now he could see!- flipping out of the way, it connected that he was dealing with throwing snares, connected by thin wire. Chakra could be run through these, strengthening them against breakage. Pretty clever, he thought- but not as clever as he.

Only two of them- and determining no other presences, he struck; in a swift two-step, Suigen struck the miniscule handle of an oncoming snare, sending it careening into the greenery. With unspoken symbiosis, he and a dripping clone then both stabbed blindly into the disturbed fronds of a giant fern behind his back. The sickly warmth and give of muscle which soon flowed around the handle of the kunai gave Suigen immediate gratification: he had detected and stabbed one of them.

Vaulting over the impaled Kazeki's head, a purple-haired kunoichi came flying, hard and fast, with another snare whipping around her.

She hit the ground near her opponent, as though she had leapt directly for him and missed; the jerkiness confused him, but then she was gone, on the tree high above, down to his opposite side. She was fast- and trying to distract him. Suigen knew this much, and wrapped one hand into a silent seal. Three of him appeared, within the falling circle of her wire; the reedy boy neatly danced away, letting his clones be tangled together within the restricting bind and also managing to miss Kazeki as he got back up, blood pumping from the wounds in his sides. And oh, my- it seemed that he'd brought out the big guns: a pair of arm-length blades which he flung about with a confidence that made Suigen smile; the girl was good, but this kid was flying by the seat of his pants.

Suigen stepped backwards, and the girl hit the ground beside her teammate. For a moment they all faced each other, Kazeki's pale face drawn with pain and malice, Suzuki's expression lost behind her hair,

And then she drew her hand out in front of her, in a sweeping, almost benevolent gesture; attached to the other end of the wire, Oboro came flying, and hit Suigen so hard that he might have blacked out for a moment. The pair tumbled to the ground in a heap, landing in a tangle of limbs where they lay for a moment, smelling the earth and gathering their senses. His outer clothing and ventilator nowhere in sight, the half-nude Oboro began letting out little wheezing gasps; his neck looked ragged, but on closer inspection, they would discover that it was not cut dangerously. Quickly heaving himself up, Suigen listened to the distant hum of the pair's disappearing chakra presences, and then whistled through his breathing apparatus. Despite all that show, they'd stolen the wrong suit- their Chi scroll was with Kagari, their third teammate, who was stalking some undersized Genin from their own land.

Oboro continued to huff, his breath slowly normalizing. "Suigen?" he finally said.

"It's not- fair. You can't even take a shit in this place without being attacked."

----

Amazingly, getting stabbed was the relatively painless part.

Kazeki bit down on the neck of his shirt before the rag even touched his wound; he knew Suzuki's bedside manner, and was expecting nothing short of perfunctory care.

Some miles away from their first attempt to collect a scroll, Kazeki had remembered his paranoid phobia and insisted on sterilizing his twin wounds; as he could hardly reach the one on his side, Suzuki had been applied to the job.

He tried not to hate her, as she bandaged and probed mercilessly; he just knew how hard it was for her to put herself in another's place, difficult to imagine that anyone else's pain was real.

He had hoped the Chunin Exams would teach them a lot of things; Kazeki about true mettle, and Suzuki about her place in a universe full of hurting people. But first they had to survive it.

And then they heard the massive giving-way of a tree being uprooted.

----

Kiba was a grinder of teeth; but the noise seemed unspeakably loud, so he focused his mind on two things alone: holding Akamaru as close as possible, and hoping his teeth weren't making more noise than Hinata's trembling breaths.

The blood was on his head, he could smell it- it had covered the leaves they now hid behind, dribbled onto his coat. It had used to smell like dogs, home- but now the reeking blood of a Takigakure-nin was sharp and pungent, and it would never come out, he knew. At that moment, he would have given anything not to have such a sensitive nose.

Actually, he would have given anything not to be in the Forest of Death.

Gaara stood like a proud Raj prince before his doings. The deep blood of mine enemies still rained from above, and it was good; it was better than the rat, better than the sand serpent. Mommy was warm and tingling within him, pleased with her good boy. Gaara was a good boy.

But she still wanted more.

If there had been any liquid left in Kiba, he would have pissed all over himself when the sand began to swirl around them. This guy reeked of death, _reeked_ of it, and he could smell the blood in the sand- something older than ages and so full of _hate_-

But when a huge white stake shot through the air, causing the concentration of the demonic Jinchuuriki to abate, Kiba was able to hold it long enough to throw Hinata forward, and run. When they finally stopped, though, he found himself with a horrid toothache, and Akamaru's urine soaking the front of his jacket.

----

Gaara's gaze shifted with the lazy speed of a lizard anticipating a fly, following thin shadow of someone who was not supposed to be there, a participant who had entered alone and would live just the same.

His thick brown hair obscuring his eyes and his left arm limp at his side, a Shinobi named Hirako bit his lip; it still hurt his skin, when he summoned forth the mantel of his clan.

The remains of the day, the remains of the Kaguya; this child of the moors would hold his knife proudly, even if he'd just brought it to a gunfight.

----

Things weren't going so well for the rest of Konoha's hopefuls, either.

It failed to strike her, how truly terrifying his faceless mask was. The Grass-nin, with inhuman claws for toenails and a guise stitched directly into the flesh of his face, had all the emotion his katana extruded. He might as well have been made of steel; the hot, paranoid feeling was rising in her throat that this could not end well. She had stumbled into this guy in a backwards crook of stinking swamp, and he'd made his intent clear by unsheathing his sword.

Tenten knew she had to run- but the fear that her legs would fail her was suddenly so strong, she remained behind an instant too late.

The genjutsu fell on her like an iron curtain, and she tumbled flat onto her face in the wet, foul-black mud.

There was the quick slicing of air that only a sword with deathly intentions can make, followed by the sickening sound of a blade catching flesh.

_CLIFFHANGER, RAWRGH!_


	5. Kaguya Promises

**AN: Blessings upon my two watchers! I promise it's gonna get smexyer. I like Suzuki's little spazzness, but I'm not sure I went into it as deeply as I could. Ah dunno. Using the bra to hide your scroll probably belongs to someone else, so kudos to them. No sueing, kthankz.**

**Special offer for the first few lucky reviewers; I need the practice, so give me some suggestions. I won't do yaoi or yuri, but any pairing or character is fine, even for other fandoms. I'll dedicate it to you, my kind supporter, and we'll all be happy. Yay.**

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* * *

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"BRAAAAAAAAPPPP-"

"Gai, you are absolutely-"

Kakashi was cut off, as Asuma leaned forward and belched with twice Gai's fervor.

Thus defeated, the masked Jonin simply regarded his tattered book and tried not to know either of them.

There was plenty for Konoha's elite Shinobi to be doing, since their usual occupations were locked for three days in confined combat- but in their typical manner, three male Shinobi were not going to accomplish anything other than bragging about their accomplishments to one another and having burping contests.

Asuma slammed back the rest of his cola as though it were a shot of lighter fluid, and then smashed the can into the table at his side; the weak bit of outdoor furniture shattered into a million plastic shards, and for a while Asuma simply sat with fist aloft, staring at what he had done.

Kurenai sighed. "Why do you have to make a mess everywhere you go?" Asuma only grinned in response, and began kicking the evidence over the side of the public sitting area.

"So, Kakashi- what compelled you to stick those three in the Forest of Death?" he asked, with a good-natured chortle. "Did they impress you that much?"

"Not so much…" the mop-topped man replied without looking up. "I just think that they need a swift kick in the ass from reality. That's what's going to make them capable Shinobi."

"Now, you see, that's precisely why I want Ino and Chouji in there. Shikamaru- he's there to prove to everyone how smart he is. He'll get all three of them through, just fine. Kid's a genius, but he's gotta apply himself..."

"I wondered if Hinata was ready for this," Kurenai said in a distracted manner; her voice had a luscious and gentle quality, and it was easy to understand why Asuma looked at her the way he did. "But then I realized that she's been protected too long. Kiba and Shino will lead, and what she learns is up to her."

"My kids are ready! No doubts here. Neji is more than Chunin level by now, and Lee-"

"I think you've bragged enough about them, Gai…" Kakashi hinted, still reading.

"I saw a couple of the cells from Kusagakure and Otokuni- plus this one cell from Amegakure. They looked, uh… interesting."

"Interesting is just a simile for dicey." Kakashi purported. "What I want to know is, who would you all put money on, right now, to survive the Forest?"

The three other entities were quiet for a moment, in consideration. Before Gai could say anything about his team, Kurenai and Asuma answered in synchronization: "Minami's kids."

Everyone knew what these teacherless pair already realized about the Shinobi life, and they'd each placed their own students in the exam so that they might learn it as well. They weren't the strongest or the best known, but those kids had It; that thing that transformed children into Shinobi, children into hollow-eyed tools of war.

-----

We join Team 14 at sunrise of the second day.

After their initial fiasco, Suzuki and Kazeki had silently focused on making it through for the time which remained until they could get a scroll; they could tell it wasn't going to be easy. The efficiency with which they worked was more impressive than most of the three-man teams, and definitely more effective.

Sleeping in quick shifts throughout the night, Kazeki and Suzuki stayed moving. Suzuki, as you know, always carried an exhaustive supply of steamed buns on her; but Kazeki hadn't eaten since they had entered the Forest. On top of his blood loss, the ripping pain in his gut was actively threatening to cripple him. As they paused that morning (atop a huge, weather-polished rock, which afforded a foggy view of the Forest's central tower), Kazeki felt his body curl involuntarily; he winced from the top of his head to the tips of his toes, and broke. He knew what the answer would be, but was beyond caring. He had to try.

"Suzuki, can I have one?"

She paused, mouth full of cold, floury dumpling skin; a bit of meat trickled from her lip.

"You know what I'm gonna say." she replied in a matter-of-fact voice.

"Look, Suzuki- I'm gonna pass out here. Please, I really need some food-"

"No!" she interjected, with as much forcefulness as a judge in the Spanish Inquisition. Face furrowed, the dower girl continued eating, with a jaw set that guaranteed that she didn't want to share another word on the subject.

But Kazeki persisted in a shrill, ragged voice.

"DAMMIT, SUZUKI! I know you have your 'issues' about this kind of thing, but I'm your teammate! Sharing is part of working together!-"

"Please, Kazeki, regale me-" Suzuki responded, tone flat and expression unwavering, "tell me _why_ I shouldn't fill my own stomach, just so you won't be distracted?"

"Because it's basic human compassion-"

"I have no responsibility to be compassionate to others."

"YES, YOU DO. You can't avoid it!" Deviating from reason, in the knowledge that it would not penetrate his teammate's thick skull, Kazeki shook his head and calmed his voice. "Please, Suzuki- stop your insanity for two seconds, so I can live long enough to get us out of this forest. If I die, you can't go on in the Exams."

His bloodless face contorted with hatred; he would fight her for a meat bun. Rather, he would fight her ridiculous self-image if it meant his life.

Suzuki just looked at him for the longest time; swallows called from the tree canopy, greedily, hungrily as Suzuki apathetically jammed the last of the fist-sized dumpling into her mouth. "These are mine. Go dig up some roots, if you didn't plan ahead."

Ryuuichi would have given him one- but that went without saying. Somedays Kazeki wished that it was Suzuki who had disappeared that day, instead of his best friend.

----

Hirako gulped down the morning air, and exhaled gratefully. He hadn't been so sure he would see this morning come, and he could afford to enjoy it.

_He had been attempting to walk around looking purposeful, and had strolled right into the clearing before the stench of death hit him; it was clear that someone had just been killed, from the slick ground to the complete silence of wildlife within the surrounding trees; nothing in his blood told him that this was a good place to be. He was about to turn around and flee, when he saw the three other Genin huddling in the bush near a red-haired Sand Shinobi. _

_He could only make out the features of one of them: a young girl, her diminutive slump as she shuddered between her two teammates. He had never seen a kunoichi with such flagrant fear in her mannerisms; and thinking only of her, he had summoned his strength from his bones._

_He sent a single javelin, arcing, to land near the Suna-nin's sandals, and bolted away before it even hit the earth; but in a few second's scope the catlike gaze of the fearsome redhead, who's very posture radiated something Hirako knew but couldn't name, had slid to his direction. _

_There is only one sensation he could relate to the sound of massive flows of the boy's sand rushing after him: that moment between when your hand touches something boiling hot, and your brain realizes how damn much it hurts. _

_Kaguya Hirako ran, dragging his useless left arm behind him; through the baby-blue shafts of intermarried dawn light, he fled with the grace and desperation only a deadman can possess. He had no plan, and yet regret did not yet enter into Hirako's mind; it just wasn't the way he was wired, and he had no time for it right now anyway._

_His back was screaming; ducking into a gully lined by sharp stones, he concentrated every muscle upon being as invisible in the forest carpet. _

_But then Gaara came slamming into the area, and the lost-eyed boy felt chakra explode within his chest, like the back of one of those rockets when it disengages from it's main body. _

"_Come out, come out wherever you are!" Gaara trilled, laughing as he surveyed the pristine wilderness; then, roaring, the insomniac bearer of the Ichibi lifted his arms and spun with the light grace of a small girl dancing on her tiptoes; utter destruction followed him, as sand whirled from the vessel across his shoudlerblades and uprooted everything in it's path. With deafening sound, the virgin forest was being peeled away as though it were no more than old wallpaper, trees spinning through the air at the will of the now-grinning Gaara. Unsure of his opponent's location, he simply smiled wider and threw out his arms at the forest before them. _

_The sand which had wrought this destruction then skittered back at his gesturing, hovering just above the earth like a gritty fog. This would have been impressive to watch- but you would soon have had no eyes, as every grain suddenly shot in all directions, literally sand-blasting everything for a major radius. A bird's nest within the vicinity was shredded, the eggs within splattered lifeless and the tending mother bird instantly killed._

_Nature seemed to weep as Gaara surveyed his work; tattered leaves from nude tree branches fell as if an early autumn had come. Huge hunks of wood were impaled into the ground. It appeared as though a bomb had gone off, leaving no natural thing in place in a fifty foot circle. _

_Satisfied, Gaara had lunged back to his stunned siblings. It was no longer about scrolls or becoming Chunin. Mommy was hungry, and still not sated._

_The minute stretched, resembling hours; sand trickled, trees collapsed. Silence. And then Hirako exploded from the ground, gasping as the cool morning air shocked through his lungs. There was nothing to breathe once he had sunk them beneath the ground, and it had taken all of his focus to keep from passing out. He was safe- for now. _

_For a while, it was only his shallow breathing to fill this naked patch of earth. And then a laugh tittered from the greenery, a laugh that made Hirako's blood run cold. _

"_Your earth-type techniques have improved, but how about the rest of you?"_

Breathing heavily, Hirako burst through the shrubbery- and was met by a single set of pearly, lime-colored eyes which stared absolute death in his general direction.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry-" he huffed.

"Shit on toast," the girl replied, making a face at him. "Shuchun just gave up waiting. He's gone after another scroll, and if he gets killed, I'm gonna blast your brains all the way back to Amegakure!"

"Well, I brought good news-" the young Kaguya said slyly, raising a rounded eyebrow at his kunoichi teammate; when her look abated, he sunk to the ground at a crouch; he'd long since wrapped the navy shirt about his waist, and the useless, atrophied limb limp against his side appeared the result of a badly-ended medical procedure.

"I saw Yakushi- and my brother is still alive."

----

Suzuki and Kazeki lifted through the trees, as quiet as _tengu_ spirits. The initial steamed bun disaster had been resolved when Kazeki scared a young applicant so badly that he left his backpack and a shoe behind in escape; the pair were now on the complete other side of where the afore-mentioned Kaguya was now implicating a crippling Shinobi alliance. They found themselves, instead, watching a dramatic scene play out in the clearing before them.

With a simple lift of his arm, the ebony-haired had pulled up the long-buried and gnarled root of an ancient tree; the sound had echoed through the forest, causing his three enemies to pause in irreverent recognition. Knees locked and head high, Rock Lee now squarely faced them all; and Suzuki and Kazeki were close enough to hear him say, to the prone form of Sakura behind him:

"Whenever you need me, I will always protect you!"

This wouldn't have been anything very moving, in happenstance. Kazeki had turned to lead away, when he realized that Suzuki wasn't following him. Her tired face buried in the leaf cover, she was watching the green-clad boy with a concentration that almost unnerved him.

"Suzuki." he quietly prompted; he went over and nudged her, and then took her by the shoulders. This was highly odd.

"Is that boy stupid or something?", she asked, looking plaintively into her teammate's eyes.

Kazeki sighed, and glanced over her shoulders. "No- he's just not going to live very long."

And Suzuki knew that. Kazeki wondered why someone so avowed to be staid and careless would even look on such a passionate person for so long, as though Rock Lee could have something to teach her.

----

Amazed that she still could, Tenten opened her eyes.

The mask of the Kusa-nin who had stared her down from plumbless depths was now grounded beside her; in death he expressed just as little. The blade of a thick tantou emerged from the left eye socket, and the liquid which had once allowed him to see was dribbling out with the speed of watery pudding.

She jumped back, just as her strange savior placed his foot on the deadman's head in order to yank free his sword. Head down, he began to wordlessly polish the blood from the sword's fat sides.

They sat there for some time, Tenten staring, the dead Shinobi sprawled between them. It was the same boy from the testing center; but now she saw that beneath the brim of the hat he had a thin nose that had been broken once, warm eyes the very same shade as hers, and dark hair falling in tufts from beneath the lampshade-like hat. A thick black tattoo scarred his left cheek.

Placing the katana into his sheath, his words were abruptly cut off by Tenten's grateful thanks. She had surely been dead, but for this Samaritan's action.

Tilting his hat down to conceal his expression, Tenten could hear him smiling.

"Sorry, but this service requires a fee."

And before she could even react to slap him, the boy had reached one robed hand down the neck of her shirt, invaded the brassiere beneath, and pulled from it's hiding place the Heaven scroll.

Horrified beyond reason, she watched him tuck the thing back into his pocket; her chest was throbbing, burning with blood and embarrassment, fear and offense. Neji was going to kill her…

"Thank you, Tenten-chan." he said, before forming a seal against his chest and disappearing just as surely as only Shinobi and loved ones could. Once again, he left her standing there; alone, but never really so.

----

**AN: REVIEW AND RECEIVE ONESHOT. I'm serious. Please.**


	6. Cai Hong

**AN: -removed a majority of discouraged shpeel/angst from these author comments, so fall down and thank me-**

**To make a long story short, I'm continuing this fanfiction not because Ryuuichi and Kazeki's respective 'owners' are good patrons of characters or decent friends; but because they can't take this joy from me. They will not win, even on the smallest of planes, because my triumph will be on the ultimate one. I keep promising them that, and I've no intention of rescinding; time shall tell, shan't it?**

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_Minami, striking Iruka on the head with a paper fan, festival lanterns gleaming in her eyes._

_Minami, lying in the grass with a kitten on her stomach; Minami with her ANBU armguards, her tattoo still bleeding. The curve of her back that disappeared as she dressed, her hair flying, and the saucy smile she had when she knew she'd been wrong. Minami, red-headed and simply her, trapped in these still images in his mind._

"Gai. Gai. Come on, they made it back."

Kakashi's face was as blank as a slab of unmarked canvas. He just blinked his one, gray eye slowly, to acknowledge that he knew what it was like to be so lost in remembering someone.

----

They weren't sure whether the contestants were highly superior, or highly inferior that year; it was so uncommon for such a number of Genin to make it through until what would have been the final round. Sarutobi had a great many duties he did not exactly like being the instigator of, and informing these kids that not enough of them had died was one of them. But then he remembered the tribulations they would face as Chunin, and suddenly the whole exchange seemed about equal.

He explained it to them, "This is the truest test of your strengths yet. All of these countries will be watching, appraising your strength and Konoha's." But he knew they were down there rejoicing, and it pricked him again as he let Gekkou take over.

But this was just the way the world went, and they were training them to survive in it.

We've already said that these exams were meant to make something of you. For the characters you don't know, yet untried by fire, please acknowledge that their struggle is just as noble as the true characters'; in that their bond is to their Shinobi path, not to besting Konoha's most hopeful generation since anyone could last recall.

----

"This is where we exit."

Hirako turned, stunned, while Kayoko and Shuchun pretended to be absorbed in the Hokage's speech.

"Don't make a sound," Kabuto added almost immediately. "Your duty is to stay hidden. Remember, Amegakure and Kusagakure exist herein only to draw certain eyes away. See that your friends know this. And don't you dare use your bones, anywhere- if you want to see your brother alive."

A chill shot up Hirako's back as the gloved medic-nin slithered away, but he didn't give it the satisfaction of showing.

----

Sasuke's performance made a few Genin feel like their spinal columns had turned into jelly; but the state in which he left the preliminaries had those same ones sighing in relief, especially Shuchun of Amegakure Squad 19. He watched the boy limp away, as though he could see through the Amegakure headband knotted over his eyes.

"Yeah." Kayoko answered his silent question, stuffing a piece of candy into her mouth. She promptly spit this out when the scoreboard flashed the next pairing of battle: Izanagi Kayoko versus Yamanaka Ino. Actually, she spit out the candy because the sheer shock of seeing Ino's outfit.

"… That is so cute! Where did you get that!?" she cried, flying down from the stands and racing directly to her opponent. Kayoko began inspecting her top, which brought the blonde kunoichi a mixture of reticence and pride. Gekkou just blinked at the exchange, before declaring the battle 'on'.

Honestly, it was a good match- Kayoko was nothing spectacular, even if she could summon a big-ass mace from the single scroll at her waist. Her lack of versatility made for a heartrenderingly pathetic clash, in which Ino was flung headlong by a direct blow by the spiked sphere at the weapon's tip, and Kayoko so mishandled the chain as to repeat the injury upon herself. No winner was declared; and most of the audience simply stood, wondering how such a blunder-ass could have made it through the Chunin exams.

"Congratulations, Naruto- someone almost a pathetic as you."

"Sakura, that's not kind," Kakashi hinted without much concern at all.

"Impressive," Kankurou noted with saccharine sarcasm. Temari continued to glare at the world in general, Gaara hovering behind her; he had barely spoken a word since they'd exited the Forest, and he really didn't need to. Every one knew what was on his mind, and that he was slowly losing it.

But the look he was giving the pigtailed kunoichi, as the medics lifted her carefully away, had Temari even more weirded out than Gaara's normal 'people-friendly personality'.

"I want that." he suddenly said, thin tongue protruding from his lips.

"What?" Temari asked, to which his reply was instantaneous and devoid of any feeling: "I want to kill some girls. I want to play with her." And then he smiled, in that Gaara kind of way that makes dub newbies soil themselves; he seemed to be happy. The only Konoha genin who could stand near Gaara without expression of fear, Suzuki (who Gaara most likely had mistaken for a male), would recall hearing this exchange and thinking: damn, that kid needs a hobby.

Gaara would get the chance to play with new 'toys' soon enough, but first there were eliminations to be had. Shino, with great suaveness, reduced Abumi Zaku to an armless torso; those who survived the exams would find that any money in their pockets had disappeared, which is what Shino applied his insects to doing as the tests carried on. Kazeki found himself in awe of the competitors from the various villages; it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that they were four times as tough and twice as ready to kill as the average Konoha genin. Fortunately, he and his teammate were not the average genin. Akadou Yoroi, slurping the chakra through Sasuke's forehead, especially gave him the creeps.

Temari mopped the floor with Tenten's face (just before she was called to the fight, however, a whisper had tickled the base of Tenten's neck: "Be careful of flying things, won't you?" Tenten had grinned, and coyly spun to face the cravated young man of her growing infatuation. "Don't you think I can look out for myself?," she asked with a pert tone that invited no truly harsh answers. A rare smile lifted the boy's black-scarred cheek; almost as soon as she had seen it, though, it disappeared beneath the brim of his straw hat once more, and the figure began striding back to his loose-looking team. And that was when she'd known.)

The traditional order mussed by the proliference of competitors, it was Kazeki who rose next, against the likes of Dongmei Shuchun. Taking stance, the silver-haired genin pulled out his 'big guns': yanking the panels from his jacket's sides, two folding blades as long as his arms were soon settled atop his shoulders, their downturned handles in each of his sweaty fists. His muscles working, chakra eventually began to glow up the blades. A Heian technique- Asuma was impressed, but Kazeki's control was patchy. Shuchun didn't fear those blades, apparently, because it was the blindfolded boy who made the first move. From a grounded stance, Shuchun barreled towards Kazeki; but with the slow grace of a meditative Shaolin, he dodged the oncoming blade and spun directly into striking zone; with the heel of his hand, he struck Kazeki's chin sharply enough to send him clattering back a few feet.

Huffing, the green-eyed boy scuffled to his feet. His charkra control not being so hot, he summoned the energy for Fuuton Kazekotae, Four Directions Answer; two pairs of swelling wind orbs loomed for a hesitant second, and then screamed towards the unflinching Shuchun. At the very last second, amidst gasps, the handicapped Shinobi correctly anticipated and deflected the elemental attacks by summoning chakra to his hands. Kazeki flew after him, only to find even his chakra-lengthened blades countered by the padding beneath the boy's thick coat; he had to dodge another blow by the boy's aged-looking and yet graceful hands, but was caught by the double kick hidden behind the intention of a foreward strike.

Damn it! How could you counter attacks you couldn't see?, he wondered as blow after blow met disheartening solidity. Locked in the midst of the tussle, Kazeki searched for some weakness; and after a few seconds, a way out became clear.

Leaping backwards, Kazeki drew from his waist twin scrolls, the replacements for his arm blades. Swooping an attack from the left, he flung both of them out around each side of Shuchun, who leapt up to escape- and then gathered a mass of wind to strike him down when he dodged the flying knives. The Ame Genin clattered back to the ground, striking the far wall as he fell.

From where the defecting competitors stood, Hirako glanced nervously at Kabuto, who grinned.

"Smart kid. He figured out your teammate's stupid technique; despite being invulnerable to genjutsu, Shuchun set himself up for failure with that blindfolding exercise. He can only defend himself from what he can hear- and you can't hear a good counterattack."

Sorry to see his companion bested, Hirako watched the rest of the fights nervously; his team had already been eliminated.

"Of course," Kabuto teased, "You're much stronger than your comrades. I'm sure you wouldn't shame yourself as they did…We'll just have to wait and see."

----

Shikamaru deviled Tsuchi Kin next, and thence came the great, maverick battle of Naruto and Kiba. Ended by a fart. No one was sure whether to praise Naruto, or the gods of dumb luck. But then, it happened.

"NO." Kazeki insisted, gripping Suzuki's thin wrist; the look she gave him could have burned holes through his flesh, but still he did not let go. "Suzuki, you have to be kind- we've got our sensei's reputation riding here. The Jonin already think we're wolf-children. Just don't do anything-"

"Stop wasting oxygen," the short girl declared, whipping free of his instable concern. But Kazeki bit his lips with anxiety, hoping that Suzuki's lack of aquaintance with Sakura would keep her from mauling the girl.

He cast her scathing looks from the platform, the moral compass; but when the fight began, he was stunned to see that Suzuki did not attack directly. Rather, she spoke softly, albeit proudly, to her opponent.

"You're the girl from the Forest," Suzuki began. "The one with the frog prince."

"Haah?" Sakura replied, before casting her eyes up towards her own personal cheering section: Naruto was teetering off the railing, while Rock Lee threw her his most approving big-brows scowl.

"Well, don't remember me as that, because I can take care of myself now." Sakura assured her, smirking; with the hitate-ate about her bulbous forehead, Sakura really did look contendable, even fearsome. Giving no chance for reply, the pretty little catch-up thrust three bunshin clones into existence.

Suzuki's speed was simply unlike anything Sakura had dealt with before; indeed, Gai was even a little shocked to see someone anywhere near Lee's degree (we stress _near_, as nobody is as awesome as Lee).

But despite all her intent, Sakura needed mettle to back up those brave words. Suzuki flew to the side wall, flinging one of her wire snares around Sakura and one of her clones; the plastic end whipped around her with a dastardly sound, wrapping the girl in tight and painful rows of thin string. Suzuki leapt upwards, appearing at the railing just beneath Naruto's face; before he could finish crying out in shock, the end of the snare Suzuki had was looped over, and Suzuki was bouncing against the ground, the end in her hand. Sakura was solidly trapped, reaching desperately for the kunai pouch at her side. Just as her hand touched the handle, though, electric energy sprung through the length of the wire; Suzuki stood completely still, feeding her chakra through the weapon. Miniscule trails of blood flew, as the weapon was then retracted into her hand.

Her bonds slipping off, Sakura was revealed to be covered in thin cuts- everywhere the wires had touched, even her clothes, bore some harmful mark. They were mere paper cuts, stinging the top layers of flesh, but those were pertinent weapons enough. Flesh stinging, Sakura reeled backwards to gain her composture.

"I wanna know why he likes you so much." Suzuki said calmly, continuing their conversation. What her latent conversational skills did not reveal was this: "I want to know what you're doing right."

With a shout, though, Sakura was back in the game; flipping backwards, she landed out of range of the throwing weapons and began raining her own arsenal of shruiken. Kunai knives rattled on empty air; Suzuki feinted side to side, calling her attention, until she could appear behind Sakura and crisscross two snares flush across the girl's chest and legs, flipping her legs out from under her and dropping Sakura on her back.

Heaving, the fair-haired girl wrangled up again over the cries of both Naruto and Lee. Suzuki, at this point, had glanced back up into the distraught face of Sakura's admirers. She wouldn't be swayed by their displays of worry, but she still noted them with a new concern.

"They really care for you." she said absently. "Why?" It was an honest question, not rhetorical or sarcastic. Suzuki stared at her, waiting for a reply.

"I don't need anyone, and I'll prove it!"

Completely contrasting her soft words, Suzuki then kicked Sakura squarely in the face. She dropped to the ground like a dead dog, mouth open and eyes sweetly shut.

And Kazeki just watched it all, wondering if this was as close to an apology as Suzuki would ever make.

----

As Neji proceeded to take out his life's angst upon his wimpy younger cousin, Suzuki and Kazeki took their places at the rail. The remaining Genin who hadn't been shipped down to the medical ward had clustered together, talking in low tones like old men at a Nascar race. But Kabuto and Hirako stood to the side, the latter shaking as he covered his face.

Shuchun was dead. Kabuto had closed the boy's eyes, nothing more; the injury to his head was so great that he had bled out within minutes of being taken away. Knowing death and knowing it well, the immediate effect on Hirako was tremendous; he was nearly on his knees. Watching this exchange with interest, Naruto picked his nose and glanced back occasionally at Hinata.

Kazeki and Shikamaru had struck up a mildly pleasant conversation over some beef jerky that was rumored to have fallen from Kiba's jacket. (Video reference- ten points to whoever can name the source!)

They jawed like retirees and complained; Sakura had been carried, for lack of a better place, back up to her sensei and team. She was waking up slowly, her expressions childish and eyes foggy.

Suzuki had been standing near Gaara, her head lolling; she very nearly fell asleep standing up, until a blow to her side sent her up and reeling. She found herself face-to-face with Rock Lee, who's usual expression had softened into an almost paternal wariness.

"Are you gonna yell at me 'cause I messed up your girlfriend?"

"No," Lee said dreamily, gazing over at the object of his affections, who sat against the wall. "Defeat will only make her stronger. This I know… Anyway, my name is Rock Lee! Who art thou?"

"Ah, Suzuki." she replied, as they lapsed into awkward silence.

"My sensei says I have to marry you."

"WHAT?"

"Our fighting styles are quite similar- Gai-sensei, my magnificent mentor, noted this whilst you were in the arena. He suggested that I go inquire as to the development of your technique, in the hopes that I could help you to improve."

"…Who's your sensei? That dreamy Jounin reading over there, right next to the guy who's way too old to be wearing spandex?"

"No, he _is_ the one wearing spandex- that is my beloved mentor! He was just kidding about the marriage part. Gai-sensei is so funny!"

"And how could we be similar?" Suzuki asked arrogantly, eyebrows lowered; she was not in the habit of looking people in the eye, and had not met Lee's gaze yet. Luckily, Lee was about as socially perceptive as she was; he smiled at her rude tone. "You employ the use of chakra to reach that kind of speed, do you not?"

"Maybe."

"You see, I am unable to use ninjutsu or genjutsu, and I have achieved a far superior degree of speed via hard work alone. I am interested, as Konoha comrades, if I may battle you in detail once these exams have passed, that I may determine the exact nature of your mimicry for my own benefit!"

"… Wait, what do you mean 'hard work'? How the hell can you be a ninja if you can't-"

"Ack!" Lee resounded, glancing towards the arena. "My teammate has triumphed; I must return to await my turn. Thank you very much for your time!" With a short bow, the apparition in legwarmers strode back to the remainder of his group; Gai was practically hauling Neji up the stairs, but smiled ridiculously once he spotted Lee. There was much rejoicing when they met each other; so much rejoicing that Suzuki actually stood, head tilted, observing them for the longest time. She kept meeting these odd, odd people who were so different from her in many aspects: they were fascinating, open, and worth speaking to.

When Lee's name sparkled across the board, something in Suzuki broke. From there, she couldn't take her eyes off of Rock Lee, not even when his pain was too much for any viewer to bear. She watched him crumble; she watched Gaara chase him, a fatigued mouse caught in a cat's domain, saw his muscles snap, his veins bulge, and his dreams shatter, and it affected her as nothing ever had before. Something in her had burst through a long-frozen wall, like a stream that began to flow beneath a thick covering of ice.

----

"This final contestant has no opponent."

"Yeah, I got news: the daimyo of Kusagakure says that if one of their Genin doesn't make it to the final exams, there's going to be a feudal temper tantrum. Hokage-sama says to let him through."

Kotetsu nodded, and went to inform the boy of his placement; his task done, Ryuuichi called off the Henge technique and reverted to his teenaged form. His head was sweating, and as he strode along the back hall to the infirmary, he let it slip from his spiky hair.

That was much better, he thought, pushing open the corridor door- and almost colliding with his former teammate Kazeki.


	7. Compass Arrow

**AN: Yay, update. I'm working on the second arc of this, and I'll tell ya- it's getting good! ^_^ Wait until you see the plot twist at the end of this story...**

**I'm starting to take my liberties with Ryuuichi and Kazeki, who frankly were too much like Sasuke and Naruto the way my buddies had it planned. Here's to killing Sue-ism everywhere...**

* * *

The dank halls which concealed a lavatory disappeared; the ground, the world dripped like molasses at Kazeki's feet as he stared. It was all he could do, even before breathing. It had to be a mistake. His mind flashed back to training sessions of old, Saturdays spent reading dirty manga- Ryuuichi. Yoshida. Ryuuichi, who killed Izanagi Minami, who bought Kazeki lunch when he forgot his money, who had hung before him like a dangling carrot, unreachable and yet so close…

But the look-alike had disappeared by the time Kazeki was able to call up a reliable image of his old companion.

* * *

The declarations were made for the Final Stage, and Kazeki was too shocked to even be fearful that he would have to face the Kinuta Dosu whom he had watched bring Akimichi Chouji to his knees.

Because Suzuki was going up against the mysterious teen who looked so much like the boy who had been able to kill a Jonin with hardly any effort. He had to find her once they dismissed- where was she, anyway?

* * *

Two days after her injury, Kayoko woke up, groggy, in the starlit dark of a hospital room. She felt prickly and done sleeping, even though it was the middle of the night, and her head ached. She knew Hirako would be there, and ordered him to get her a glass of water for her papery throat.

Gaara just laughed, and waited for her to realize that he wasn't anyone she'd want to know.

* * *

_"Kawa __ga__, __umi __he __nagarete__, __toki __ga__-__"_

Gai was trying to remember this little song, from the shreds of a memory he had of his own mother; comforting, he needed to be comforting, if Lee was awake. If Lee ever woke up. In his darkest heart, that made Gai want to scream at himself, he almost wished that Lee wouldn't. That pain would be more endurable than having to watch the student he loved bash like a crippled bird against a now-concaved glass ceiling.

He knew it was the best care in the village; he knew that Lee was the best, the brightest and the most adorable, but it didn't make walking into the hospital room any easier. Unable to face him, Gai had strolled all along the footpaths of Konoha until sunrise. Visiting hours had just begun by the time he found Lee's room, in the Intensive Care unit. The stench of linoleum and blood made him want to vomit; he hated hospitals, and resented from his core the imprisonment it represented. This would be his home from now on, even if he rose again.

But coming to the knowledge that he would give anything to save this boy, Gai felt bolstered enough to see him, no matter what condition either of them were in. His heart throbbed in expectation, but in his mind Gai had already decided that nothing would shock him. Together, they could endure all.

But he was shocked, in fact- when he walked in, Lee's scattering of black hair against the sharply-off white hospital bedding contrasted even deeper the dark purple head of a young girl, who had fallen asleep in a visitor's chair to the comforting chant of the breathing machine.

She bolted wide-awake, gray eyes startled, when the window a room on a lower floor exploded open.

* * *

"How could this have happened?" Hirako fairly shouted, though his very thoughts had been tempered by exposure to Kabuto. The nurse looked nonplussed, more annoyed than anything.

"Please calm down." snapped the girl, who's upside-down nametag read 'Katoh'. It was annoying the crap out of him. "We'll send a few Chunin out to look for her, but even if she was kidnapped, there isn't-"

"Look, 'Hotak'!" Hirako bit off the end of her sentence. "That Sand creep was in here, and now she's gone- even someone with your brain capacity must see some connection!"  
"Being rude doesn't help her, you little shit." the woman replied, at the end of her rope. "And if you think it was one of the competitors, you're out of luck anyway." she added smartly. "The Hokage won't penalize another country's Shinobi what with all the Kages and daimyos around now. I'll see who can see to this… For now, get lost."

Left in the pale-blue hallway, Hirako stomped outside the building before letting loose all of his wrath upon a beautiful pear sapling that he encountered, thankfully, before a person.

* * *

In socked feet, Tenten quietly bustled to the small counter of her family's kitchen; she lived here alone with her father, who had been absent for much of her life until her mother's death. They got along with a minimum of communication, and Tenten secretly respected him not at all.

Dumping a half a bag of frozen dango into the roiling rice cooker, she bemoaned having to prepare her own lunch; it sure would be nice to have a cozy, informative mother to have snacks cooked up when she came home from the Exams… She was skipping training today, which probably meant that Gai would be pounding down the door within hours. But it mattered not; it was a mental health day, and very much deserved after that horrid trial. She did so hate to be alone, though.

Spooning strawberry Ovaltine into a glass of milk, she let her eyes set upon the soft corner of the kitchen window and thought about her new crush. She hadn't intended to get so caught up in a random encounter, and it made her want to kick herself in the head- but she gave over to the bubbliness of it, and melted into love-sung giggles. She hadn't meant someone so charming since… well…

_"Hi__.__"_

"_Hi__.__"_

_"What's __a __girl __like __you __doing __in __an __Academy __like __this__?__"_

"_Ha__-__ha__! __Where __did __you __come __from, you weirdo?__"_

_"Same __place __as __you__- __sperm __meets __egg__.__" __he __said__, __grinning __provocatively __for __a __twelve __year__-__old__. __"I __got __moved __up __to __this __class__.__"_

_"What ARE you talking about… oh, nevermind._ _So __do __you __need __a __pencil __or __something__? __What __do __you __want__?__"_

_"Maybe __I __need __some one __to __cheat __off __of__- __or __maybe __I __just __like __you __a __lot__.__"_

It was no longer a somber, kindergarten memory; for the first time in a while, Tenten felt edified. Admirable. Something she hadn't been since her childhood love had disappeared on that day.

When the rapping came at the door, she was still ambling in dreams; the look in Kazeki's eyes, as he stood behind the dead bolted door, failed to touch her as it should have. Everything did, until his lips formed the words.

"Ryuuichi is back."

Birds screamed, wind chimes tinkled; the moment suddenly seemed embroidered, heavy and cloyingly scented, as these words digested into her mind. She grasped the doorframe and stared at half of Kazeki's face.

"Come again?"

"Ryuuichi was in the Chunin exams." Kazeki repeated, with ferocious concentration and a bit of disdain. "I saw him. I know it was him. And now Suzuki's scheduled to fight him. You knew Ryuuichi probably better than I did. What should we do?"

"… We shouldn't tell anyone."

"Tenten-"

"He's dead! He wouldn't have left me here, otherwise!" she shrilled, grasping the broad sleeve of her robe until her fingernails turned blood red. "You must be on something, Kazeki. Don't mess with my head like that, Kazeki!"

"Tenten. It was him. I'm as sure as anything." Kazeki repeated, pressing his face close to the wood. "He's alive, and he's here, for some reason. He left on pretty bad terms with Konoha, and I doubt his intentions are any better than they were then. We have to do something."

"What are you talking about!?" Tenten rasped, her mind racing.

"… Tenten, Ryuuichi killed our sensei, and then he disappeared. I know I told you differently, but believe me. I saw it, but I never saw Ryuuichi die. He just disappeared with this one missing-nin."

Kazeki gulped loudly, and refocused his gaze directly into her fearful eyes.

"Should we tell the Hokage?"

"No." Tenten immediately replied. "We need to wait. You could be wrong, and then the Hokage would never forgive us. We need proof… Oh, Jesus. This is so insane."

"No, he is." Kazeki stated. "And he's only gotten crazier and crazier since we saw him, I'd guess. He goes by Kurosaki Taro, now. Help me find him."

Tenten said she would, and lay on the doormat for a long time after she closed the door. The dango burned, inedible.

* * *

The song Gai was trying to remember translates to something like this:

_Rivers __run __to __meet __the __sea__; __time __walks __on __with __aching __feet_

_the __sun __will __hide __it's __face __in __fear__, __but __you'll __be __safe __while __I __am __here…_

Suzuki and cold, dead Shuchun knew it too; they probably would have wept to hear it, like a voice from afar: the voices of their dead parents, from the river.

Because the world really was so fearful when they weren't there.


	8. Strings

**AN: Pray excuse me for the variance of paragraph-spacers; I didn't have time to scratch my watch or wind my butt this week, let alone battle MSWord... Nevermind that my in-class doodles are backed up the wazoo for posting on dA...**

**I love this chapter of the series, because you can write about it a hundred times and find some new way to make profound metaphors. And did anyone read this week's update? Sarutobi was so cute!**

**

* * *

**

The arena that day roiled with hushed excitement; only Suzuki came to watch Naruto, since Kazeki had been out late stalking some boy he thought was Ryuuichi (That had ended with a trip to the police station, with her having to vouch for his mental instability before the kid dropped charges). To either effect, he slept in; Hirako came and hung out with Hinata, getting her unsmiling chaperone Kiba to laugh, but Kayoko went to scatter Shuchun's ashes; she was doing it against Hirako's wishes, and had been waiting until he'd let go of the damn urn.

Dosu was busily stalking his to-be opponent (poor Kazeki), but the rest of Naruto's friends and some of his enemies had turned out to see either Neji make mincemeat of him or Neji in fourteen pieces across the ground, depending on who you asked. It was your basic average day at the Coliseum, with the lions versus the Christians. The days went on.

And the deaths in this competition meant as little as the fluttering of a single leaf.

----

They let the pair in, even if they were 'fashionably late', as Gai would testify. Lee was still looking rough, unable to fit his bulky casts and splints into his favored spandex. Gai saw the little disappointments like this only because he knew Lee, not because he complained or showed them; but in doing all he could to ignore what the medics had told him, that Lee would never be a Shinobi again, Gai did reveal his guilt in a superfluous compassion towards the injured.

The Lee Fan Club had split up slightly, since Suzuki had plunked into training long hours alongside Kazeki; Gai insisted upon it, to which Suzuki made no response except with her eyes. She and Lee were right buddies now, as thick as if they'd known each other for ages. They played raucous games of Scrabble wherein injuries resulted, and got in trouble more than once for racing wheelchairs down the halls. Gai laughed to see their sport, knowing that being silly and carefree was healing a part of these kids. Suzuki shared her meat buns with Lee, now. (Everyone felt the benefit of Suzuki being social and more humanistic, .)

When Gai had wandered off to pep-talk Neji, the two friends stood staring skyward. Lee could have forgotten his crutches as the wind ruffled his hair; he had missed being outside.

Neither of them mentioned the other day, when Lee had collapsed in the hospital yard doing push-ups. Suzuki had been unable to stop picturing wilted violets since, and she hurt in her heart as she hadn't in a long time. She felt embarrassed to see him fall, to have stood by Sakura and Ino while they waited for crabby Katoh to return. She knew his obsession, now, with becoming stronger; but she also knew that a small amount of doubt resided in both Gai and Lee's hearts, and they were trying their best to keep that knowledge from each other. It was an odd limbo, so Suzuki said nothing. As she always had.

Well, nothing except: "My parents are dead."

Lee startled with that adorable little anime sound affect only he can replicate (squee), and turned to her with a wince. "What?"

Suzuki gazed at the sky longer. "They died trying to get me away from our village."

After some quiet, Lee asked her what on earth she was talking about; meanwhile, his own head was swirling with recollections of a life that had been taken from him by forces beyond reasoning.

"Our village was under the thumb of this Shinobi gang- see, I'm from the Land of Waves. My father and mother worked for the fish factory, and I was a little nothing. I would have been nothing. But the raping and looting just became ridiculous, and the adults- some of them decided to escape to Ho no Kuni by the river. In the end, the gang guys found out, and started hacking people up to scare the rest of us. While the others made a stand, lots of parents lashed the small children to the rafts, and sent us adrift. The one guy cut off my father's arm as he pushed me away. I remember that, and where the river met the bay. Coming to Konoha."

"My father died on a mission." Lee regaled somberly. "I always thought he was brave, but then someone told me that he had been running away. He was hit in the back with a Fuuma shruiken."

"That's dumb." Suzuki replied sympathetically, glancing over at him. After a minute: "Guess both our parents were pretty stupid."

"A7s7tegshGts!^F--EXCUSE ME!?" came the overly-emotional response from her companion. Lee had entered Fledgling Gai Mode, and had somehow scrounged up the social perception to realize that saw that it was time to have one of those Come-To-Jesus talks. That no propaganda might alter the new Springtime of Youth! "If I were you, I would be falling down and thanking them every day! How can you dare decry their munificence like that!?"

"…I- I've been a really terrible person. They wouldn't think I was worth saving, if they knew me today."

"… Suzuki, that is ridiculous." he said, the fire and brimstone leaving his voice.

"No, it's not! I've done what I've done!" she burst out, before curling in on herself and quieting. "I didn't help my sensei when she was dying. I was being- selfish. Stupid. I took Minami-sensei away from Gai-sensei because I just… I didn't… Kazeki hates me now, and I don't blame him. I ruined everything, and not even because I was scared..."

"… These are debts indeed, Suzuki. But I know that Gai-sensei could never hate you- and whether you think you were worthy or not, these sacrifices have been made. You owe these loved ones, Kazeki and everyone else you know, the honor of living with gratefulness, and kindness towards others."

The smile that bloomed across her face was slow, stiff with lack of use. "… I haven't done that."

"Then start." Lee replied, smiling vaguely. Then he pulled a meat bun out of his pocket; he ignored the tears in her eyes, understanding how it felt to hear your pardon for the first time, and offered her half of it. When she said thank you, he knew that it was for more than the food.

"So who do you think is gonna win?"

"Naruto, without a doubt!" Lee responded, shaking his head. His leg hurt, and the sun fell behind a cloud.

----

"Are you nervous about tomorrow, Gaara?"

When Temari asked him, he told her no; when Kayoko asked, her soft voice made him admit, yes. A little bit.

----

There was a significantly better turn-out for the Gaara/Sasuke match. Like, three quarters of the village. (This offended me so much in the series.)

Everyone was clamoring, having seizures, or hawking something. Kiba was having a ball, tripping people and stealing hot dogs (you know it was like going to a baseball game: mania, horrid bathrooms, and overpriced alcohol). This would make Kabuto's Fluffy Feather no Jutsu extra affective, but before we go into this darker chapter, let's note that someone else was having a semi-important discourse moment.

Imagine, if you will, a soft-faced young girl with jet black hair waving gently in the melodramatic shojou wind; her small hands clasped against her miniscule breasts, lips pouted and pert. This is what Gaara saw after he'd made a bloody milkshake of the two Shinobi who had stopped him in the hall (mere appetizers), when he glanced back up to see if Kayoko had shown up. The expression on her face made him wonder- but it wasn't distracting enough to keep him from wigging out and going full-on Ichibi, of course.

Orochimaru's plot awoke; the Snake Cerebus and the Spirit of the Sand arose, and Sandaime entered the hall of his destiny; the high walls which had once shielded a tender purgatory of innocent Genin, a disconcerted village with no reason to fear, were breached; eddies of ill-will and even the forms of hideous nightwalkers would continue to stroll through these gaping holes, even once the barriers were rebuilt, even once all of those children of war and all things defied by our hearts had walked so far that they were sure nothing could find them. But they would never be strong enough; they could only brace, each against the other, and hold back the dam as evil flowed with the unstoppable nature of floodwater, attempting to drown everything they knew. They could only die knowing they had protected what was then theirs.

When that was all you could have, it was worth keeping in the absolute. And that's why they chased after Gaara, went fleeing into the thick of hell the way they did. Because nothing would ever be the same again- so come what may. It was coming anyway.

----

"Shit, shit, shit, shit…" Ryuuichi chanted in his head, hands flying through seals. Something had stunk in the arena- and it wasn't just the overflowing toilets. Why on earth would they have sent him here if they knew Orochimaru was going to pull a stunt like this- whatever the hell Orochimaru was. Talk about a weirdo. Never mind that creepy voice, coming from a _female_ corpse…

He was going to ask Kisame-sensei about all of this if he got out of here alive- and stomp on a garden snake for the heck of it. How do you get rid of a little snake, anyway, let alone a big one? He'd never liked them; something about their lack of limbs just creeped him out. All he could think as he watched the three-headed monster crushing buildings was: yuck.

These apathetic thoughts drifting happily in his head, Yoshida Ryuuichi stretched his long arms and removed his outer cloak; with a slight flourish, he strolled up the stone steps and, finding the row in which Kazeki was seated, draped it over his old teammate's face (_that'd_ give him something to freak out over). Little whack mobile. You could almost sorry for him… but he was too good to waste time on things like sympathy.

He knew what was coming, besides the demonic summonings of the feminine yet fearsome Orochimaru; he knew Itachi and Sasuke would meet, knew how far Sasuke would have to go to meet only the pathetic half-truth. He knew that Nagato was cooking away at the real demise of Konoha in his misty homeland. And he knew there was nothing for him here.

But as he rose, Ryuuichi paused; and for the first time in a long time, he realized that he was wrong.

----

_This__._

When Sakura leapt between the fallen Sasuke and a hellion made of suffocating desert breath, this was all that existed in her mind.

_This __is __why __they __care__, __Suzuki__- __because __they're __waiting __for __me __to __stand __up __for __them__._

----

**AN: And now, time for hatred. Suzuki is my brainbaby, and I want your strictest reviews on how I depicted her here. I thought her (ahem) contributions would balance out the angst from which she spawned; I promise that by the second arc, she'll be paying back her social debts. **


	9. Hoshikuzu

**A/N: ... Ahem.**

**AAUAAUAUUUUUGGGHHHHH!!!! --- Check my profile for a link to MY dA FANART! I'm now available to accept art trades, oh benevolent readers! -winkwink- **

* * *

And we all know what happened from there.

Oh, we don't? Well, fine- but to understand, you have to wake up to a world with people you knew missing, just like a few of our friends were about to.

----

Naruto carried her as though his life, not hers, depended on his strength. He concentrated on the chakra, in an attempt not to feel her life pumping out onto his clothes, alien and cold against his skin as it soaked through him, body and soul. Sakura was dying; he knew it, in the deepest part of himself that held Kyuubis and doubts. She seemed to be drifting, and it was beyond all thought. He ran towards the heart of the village, beyond fear and any obstacle.

----

"Where's Sakura?"

"Is your brain on repeat?" Suzuki asked him; she was all he talked about before the feathers fell, and even now, as a thousand people picked themselves up from the sticky, disgusting arena floor, Lee wasn't thinking about all the years of milkshakes and gum and bacteria he'd been lying in (Kazeki would have died). No. It was all about Sakura.

"I do not know, but… I think she is in trouble."

"Then go- hobble away and save the day."

Lee blinked for a while, seated upon a half-shattered bench; Suzuki went over to a nearby tea stall, now abandoned by it's owner, and poured herself a glass. She was a firm believer in IOU's.

"… Suzuki, what happened?"

"Looks like they ran away. Oh my god, they have steamed buns in this container-"

"No, I mean, to the village! It looks like an overturned basket. How can you think of food at a time like this!?"

"If you're gonna get your panties in a wad, go look for her." Suzuki repeated, stuffing her pockets. (This was going to be a very large IOU.)

"… But, I…"

Suzuki paused, glancing down at the tightly-bound plaster that had replaced Lee's left limbs, then sighed. "Fine. I'll go with you."

Before Lee could react, Suzuki bent at his side and gracefully scooped her friend up in the manner that one would carry a sheep. Draped over her shoulders, Konoha's lamed Green Beast and it's river child began making their way down the destroyed promenade- very slowly. Within ten feet, Suzuki had sunk to her knees, grunting under Lee's weight.

"… Suzuki, I din't mean that you had to carry me." Lee declared, craning his neck.

"Good, because you're heavy. And you're squishing the buns."

"But wait, don't drop m- AAH!"

And thus Lee could add a head injury to his list of ailments, as Suzuki shrugged him off of her back.

----

Truthfully, Ryuuichi's cloak did not strike Kazeki. Having struck the concrete floor like a falling deadweight, he had ended up rolling down a few rows of chairs, landing precisely in the lap of a very old, very gnarled old lady. After being severely beaten with an umbrella, Kazeki wandered out with the majority of the crowd, looking sleepy and stunned. Luckily, Chunin had appeared to herd the masses through the restless smoke, towards the bunkers obscured by the Hokage Monument.

Lead on a horrific tour of his ruined village, Kazeki slowly drifted from the pack; how he ended up where he was, he didn't know, but he thought he might have been following an old hunch.

He found their old fort, the caved-in cavern in a scratchy pile of loose rock. How stupid were they- this thing could have fallen in and crushed them at any minute, especially in the midst of their half-finished tunneling projects.

He crawled into the space, now much too lanky to fit comfortably. But even with his knees bent against his chest, it all failed to seem real. His outer skin felt numb, his brain as thick as a milkshake.

Ryuuichi had probably escaped by now.

It was in contemplating this that he heard first the scuffles of their sandals, and then their high, frantic voices.

"But we have to find him-"

"Hirako. Chill pill. Take one."

"But he's gone! They destroyed the whole damn village and now they're gone! How am I-"

"Look, bucko- something tells me that Kabuto is like a foot fungus. You don't ever really get rid of him. He'll be easy enough to find, and then you can ask him."

The young Kaguya proceeded to drop where he stood- which was precisely beside the entrance to Kazeki and Ryuuichi's childhood lair.

He could see enough of them to recall their names; Kayoko and Hirako, brats from the team of the kid he'd faced in the Eliminations. Well, it would seem that Kazeki had just traded one drama for another. He leaned a tad closer to listen- and an instant later scooched backwards to avoid his head being smashed into the roof of the cave by a thick, spiked object.

Staring down his opponent until it disappeared, Kazeki followed it into the light. He found himself standing between two significantly shorter children, who each looked pink with sleep. They'd been in the arena.

"How much did you hear?" the tousle-haired boy asked him; the pair had adopted very threatening expressions, and the overall effect was of Chihuahuas snarling.

"That's not a good way to look unsuspicious." Kazeki noted with a brotherly superiority.

"Don't fucking talk to him like that!"

"Oo, and how does that 'tude aid you in attack? Last I recall, you weren't so fearsome, little girl…"

Hirako and Kayoko met solemn gazes; from behind her back, Kayoko drew the long, black handle of her heady weapon before her body.

"Don't even try it. I could make you both into flan if I felt like it."

"Just tell us what you heard!" Hirako shouted, face furrowed and bones boiling beneath his skin.

"I'll save that for the Hokage." Kazeki replied, and began to stroll away, hands in his pockets. "Unless…"

"Unless what!?"

"Unless you guys help me gather some information. And if you disagree, I can guarantee you the best beating of your lives before you face the Assassination Squad. Got it, kiddies?"

(One of Kazeki's dearest traits: he hates anyone younger than him, with a passion. Especially babies.)

----

"We're supposed to be in the bunkers until it's safe."

"But I made a promise!" Lee exclaimed, just before one of his crutches became stuck in a sidewalk crack.

Suzuki watched him pathetically trying to yank it out for a while, saying: "Promises, schmomises. I'm not cleaning you up when a Sound Ninja gets you."

"Then I will die knowing that I fought for a purpose! Nothing could be more noble! If I fall, I fall with honor, and the memories of my friends shall be dyed red with my determination so they then will-"

"Sakura's probably there already."

Lee paused for a moment; then, cleanly freeing his crutch, he began limping towards the center of town.

"… You and Kazeki would get along great, you know? You're on the same brain length."

----

The leaf shadows danced to the tempo of a gutted city's flames; it rained, through open roofs and destroyed storefronts. Konoha began patching together, like a badly-damaged statue glued back together piece by piece, and everyone seemed to heal with it.

Sakura's wounds were, fortunately, superficial; she had awoken as Naruto carried her into the bunker-space, and given him a thorough thrashing for putting his hands on her. It was true, she had taken quite a blow from the Sand Demon- but it was the blow that would have killed Sasuke, and she was glad to have taken it.

Sasuke didn't get up. He didn't blink, glare, or demean anyone, and Naruto hated that almost as much as he hated when Sasuke was awake.

A month passed, and another; Kazeki saw Hirako and Kayoko around, before he realized that they were hiding out. It turned out that they had been living in the very cavern he and Ryuuichi had dug, stealing food and sleeping in shifts.

"We can't go back before we talk to you-know-who. And he'll be back here," Hirako said with that pathetic, sad little voice of a young avenger. Lee, who had taken to following Kazeki around via Suzuki's suggestion, nearly wept.

"I am so sure that Kazeki would open his own residence to you, since I would do the same! For we are on 'the same brain length', after all!"

Thus, Kazeki got roommates. Given, the pair weren't too much trouble; they cleaned the hair out of the drain, kept the microwave clean, and made themselves scarce whenever the room's owner showed up. Kayoko one day took it upon herself to give the single room a thorough cleaning.

"What do you want now?" Kazeki had asked, observing the shining floor and dustless shelves.

"We just never had a home before." Kayoko said honestly. "We slept in caves and dumpsters in Amegakure." And Kazeki had almost softened. Almost.

"Lovely job, Kayoko-chan."

"Go home and please leave me alone, Lee…"

----

She kept waiting. Waiting every night, by the window.

And when he actually appeared before her, serpentine eyes full of the night and promise, Tenten forgot all about years and rumors, dead Jonin and the new smell about him. She clung to Ryuuichi, on the cusp of weeping, knowing that it had all been worth it.

* * *

**AN: -sigh- It's good to be alive. And yes, something unprudish MAY JUST HAPPEN with Tenten and Ryuuichi, I can't say. You'll just have to wait until the next update, I guess... -slurps tea deviously- **


	10. Down

**A/N: Ahaha, finally- the long-awaited Ryuu/Ten confrontation! Only two more chapters to go, so I'm booking it on the next arc. I still need name suggestions, guysos.**

**Spoilers at the bottom of the page! You have to read to get to them! ^_^ I'm so mean...**

* * *

They weren't sure what to say, at first, even Ryuuichi. It took him a while to materialize to her scrunched body, to raise his hand and place it against the clammy skin of her tender neck.

And then simultaneously they spoke: "… I don't care why," and "Your boobs sure have gotten bigger."

In the dark, their eyes were feverish and indiscernible. Tenten looked as though she had just been removed from solitary confinement, fishlike in her stare.

"No. I mean it. I don't care why you left."

"That's good," Ryuuichi breezed, climbing from the window sill and seating himself on the bed beside her. Beside her; he was really here, musky, thick, and him. It was beyond comprehension. " 'Cause I can't say yet, until we have a little talk."

"…Ryuuichi, did you…"

"Kazeki got to you, I suppose?" he asked in a calm rhetoric, his teenaged voice reeking of cologne and confidence. He artfully twisted his head, and smiled; it literally turned her knees to water.

"Yes, Tenten, I did all he said- unless he told you that I used to steal all his girlfriends in the Academy, or drown kittens. I can only imagine what he'd say nowadays…"

"He misses you." she found herself saying. "He's been chasing what you were ever since."

"Yeah, that's him- always a follower. The scenery never really changes when you're behind the lead dog…" The smirk in his voice was obnoxious but permeating. "So he hasn't grown up too much?"

"Suzuki's older than time."

"She always was." he reiterated, clutching the back of his head. They lapsed again into silence, each their own; again it was the almond-eyed girl on the verge who broke the trance, sliding her pious gaze over him as she contemplated her own death sentence.

"I need a change of scenery." she said, tone pregnant with long thought. "Wherever you've run off to, I want to come, too."

Ryuuichi was conditioned against startling; this was the reason he had come, but it still sounded so odd when actually voiced. Too sentimental, too implausible- too dangerous for someone he still cared so much for.

"I was hoping you would say that," he replied, too relieved to extrapolate. It truly happened this fast; the fate of every character in this story, including the canon ones, was decided by the foolish decision of one lonely young girl- a girl finished with the apathetic world.

He snatched her hand, found it as flushed and warm as her kindly-sloping face as she struggled not to look at him. When he held that hand against his lips, Ryuuichi knew that this was indeed reality- and in her anxious doe eyes, he saw all of the trust he could ever need to work with.

"I'm trying to get into this organization." he whispered against her knuckles. "It's called Akatsuki, and I'm training under one of it's members. And I don't know what I'd do if you came with me. I'd probably die of happiness, because then I'd have everything I've ever wanted."

----

Suzuki was outside, helping Lee water some decrepit daisies near his apartment, when the wind snapped down the alley with biting vehemence. Even a month after the Hokage's funeral, all of Konoha still seemed glum and mourning, on the edge of autumn with but memories of warmer days left.

Suzuki's red shirt whipped up her stomach like a parachute; what hair she had was sent tousling, and she gasped, eyes closed, as soon as the feeling and the breeze had passed.

"What is it?" Lee called from his knees; he was wearing a gardening visor, from beneath which he gazed concernedly at her, and an equally ridiculous polka-dotted glove on his good hand. His casts would be coming off any day, and neither he or Suzuki could stand being inside any longer.

She just blinked a few times, tasted bile. _Nothing good_, she thought; but she told Lee she'd seen a snake. Just a little one, though. Nothing to worry over.

----

Kakashi stabbed Asuma in the back with a book he'd read four times, and asked for a cigarette.

"You don't smoke," he acknowledged pleasantly, handing Kakashi the pack anyway.

"No, I usually don't." Kakashi replied. "I'm going to go burn some little kids with this. Light?"

"I don't believe that's responsible Jonin behavior, my friend…"

"You don't know Naruto and Sasuke."

"Ha." The day was crystalline, almost saccharine. The porcelain sky was hiding different expressions, in the turncoat trust that accomplished Shinobi learn to have in everything. Asuma inhaled, savoring the thick, sweet cancer smell, and Kakashi, mask down around his Adam's apple, replied in kind; it was as tart an odor as the changing leaves, and just as soothing to them both.

"They're gonna kill each other."

"You actually think these kids have any perception, Kakashi? I know that Naruto doesn't have a lick of common sense, just like his father."

"Despite the fact, I know Naruto is going to make something of himself. He's just about beyond where I can teach him, I think. But Sasuke…What do you like so much about these, anyway?" came the unruffled, unmuffled hum of a tone that you could almost forget Kakashi had ever had; he turned the paper over in his hands a few times, his open eye lethargic and rimmed with sleeplessness.

Asuma just sighed deeply. "I like knowing I could burn someone if they needed it."

----

Tsunade was exceptional, not only for her 'endowments' both bodily and skill wise, but because she had the rare ability to carry herself as a woman should. When anyone noticed her artificial beauty or the ease of her carriage, they were sensually jealous, deep within themselves, simply because it took audacity to be that clever and be sure of it.

She was altogether a fitting Hokage, and she settled into the role with more ease than she would have liked to admit. She did it for Dan, for Nawaki and Naruto, but mostly for herself; she knew she needed the responsibility, and she knew that Konoha needed an inflammatory dragon at it's bow, with the staunch and emotionally constipated heads of state who had been running things in Sarutobi's absence. She would have bitten off Jiraiya's face before admitting it, but she was glad to be back in Konoha.

The road held too many memories.

While she was making her rounds of a chronically understaffed hospital with Naruto as her ceaselessly-chatting guide, Tsunade suddenly realized how long she had been gone: the streets had all changed, the faces of the neighborhoods and the eyes of the children. Izanagi Minami had died, she was told; Kakashi was grown up and handsome now, and Rin hadn't survived the Third Shinobi War. What she didn't know was that Orochimaru was still in every cranny of this place, the locus of his power within the feverish, swirling head which she placed a healing hand against.

Tsunade was amazing, in many aspects and facets; but her greatest skill was knowing that an undercurrent existed within the Uchiha boy, and that something even more fearful than snake-men and Sound-nin cavorted outside the reconstructed barriers of this farce of a city.

----

"Naruto, get your filthy face over here and eat this."

"You're so sweet, Sakura-chan!" he called to her as he came running, jacket whacking the backs of his legs rhythmically. The bluebird pairs nuzzling and chatting in the nearby trees never stopped their exchange, for all the noise Naruto made.

Looking highly annoyed, Sakura was waiting by the base of the path, jiggling a bento wrapped in a red _furoshiki_ cloth. Her mother had made it especially for Naruto, whom Sakura had been complaining about that morning in a very tempermental, teenaged kind of way. Being kind to him was never a high point in her day, especially not when she was forced to.

Naruto accepted the gift with opened palms and a grin that was made him look like a monkey imitating a human smile. He completely undid the politeness of the gesture, however, when he opened the container and began scrutinizing the little rolls of fish and vegetables, arranged by the artfully idle fingers of a pleasant housewife.

"Stupid." she told him. "You're not supposed to pick through it while I'm here! And where's my thank-you?"

"Hehheh. Sorry- thanks, Sakura." he quickly patched upon the situation, smiling again. Sakura turned and began her long hike home, given that she had the luxury of resting there today. It was a Sunday, and she hadn't yet had the strength to pursue anything that she had been contemplating.

"You look stronger," Naruto yelled after her, box clutched against his sweaty chest.

"… What'd you say?"

"You do," Naruto affirmed. "You just look…different now. Since the Chunin exams. Like you've just learned some awesome new jutsu or something."

In spite of herself, Sakura ended up smiling- and staying. As Naruto devoured her mother's delicate seasonal goodies, they chatted beneath the eaves of an age-old oak, trying to avoid the hail of bluebird droppings.

"So what are you doing out here anyway?"

"Training, duh! I've got a huge stinking battle coming up. You should stay and watch me bust this guy up."

"Who?"

"Kid from the exams." Just as Naruto said this, Kazeki came tromping around the corner, Kayoko and Hirako at his heels.

"Hey, why are you babysitting?" Naruto shouted, loud enough to make Sakura squirm. Kayoko shouted an unintelligible ephitet towards our _kawaii kitsune_, but Kazeki had enough decorum to wait until he reached the pair to begin complaining.

"I seem to have my magnet on today."

"We want to watch Kazeki fight again," Hirako answered for them; he looked incredibly boyish that day with his driftwood-colored hair shining and combed; he seemed much younger than eleven.

"Very flattering. Now get lost." Kazeki spat, and began unfastening the straps of his satchel. He looked about as pleasant as Neji on one of his PMS days, as though he had a mouthful of gravel rather than chewing gum. Naruto immediately demanded some, which the boy obliged. He nodded attentively towards Sakura, glad that Suzuki hadn't seriously messed up her face; if you could disregard the forehead, she was actually quite comely.

Sakura plopped down in the grass, patting beside her to encourage the hard-faced Kayoko to join her. Skirt pooling in her lap, the dark-haired girl pulled Hirako down with her by the shirtsleeve. He ended up on his back in the dirt, which made both females grin sadistically.

Unlike Kazeki, Sakura preferred the company of younger children. They were much easier to please, she thought as she stretched to touch the tips of her sandals and watched Naruto and Kazeki strut about hurling pre-battle insults.

"So he can use wind-type jutsu?" she inquired, to none of them in particular.

"Just a little. He's working on beefing up that Heian technique." Hirako answered ploddingly, now lying on his stomach with his forearms beneath his chin; he hadn't taken his eyes off of Kazeki. "Naruto-san was totally awesome at the exam."

"Don't let looks deceive you." Sakura grumbled half-heartedly; she was proud of Naruto's performance herself, but being nice about him, as she had resolved to, was harder than it had seemed.

"Guys are the worst." Kayoko agreed; when Hirako made an offended sound, she balled her fist and let it fall squarely atop his brown head.

"Phh. Stop beating each other up. It means you'll have to get married someday." Sakura smiled.

"What's gonna be your fighting style?" Hirako asked, trying to ignore Kayoko's snickers and get rid of his own, adorable blush.

"Hmm." she said, trying to sound knowledgable. "I'm thinking about asking the new Hokage to train me- in medical jutsu. I think I'd be good at it."

"Lee-san keeps meaning to ask you." Kayoko noted, glad to be snitching. "He's just too scared to come talk to you. He keeps around Suzuki-chan, as if she could teach him anything about girls."

"I very honestly thought Suzuki was a boy until she opened her mouth… and don't you go telling her that, Kayoko-chan!"

When they had all finished laughing, Kayoko stretched out on her back like a gleeful puppy sunning it's belly, and let her smile fall.

"Gaara wanted me to tell you that he's sorry for hurting you."

----

"I'll make chicken soup out of your internal organs!" Naruto called uselessly as he ducked; Kazeki's foot struck the tree behind him with a resounding echo, and the fight nearly ended as Kazeki began leaping about pathetically, clutching his ankle.

They began with a taijutsu round, finding themselves equally matched. If anything, Naruto was wilier, and Kazeki was practically line-dancing to evade his looping counterattacks. When the stakes went higher, Kazeki bared his blades; Naruto just smirked, and sealed his hands to encapsulate his fledgling, signature jutsu. As the Rasengan hummed to life, Naruto made one last comment:

"I'm gonna hurry and beat you, so I can take on Sasuke."

"Sorry. Not gonna happen." Kazeki replied soundly, swinging one of the blades about and letting the blunt side land on his shoulder, "I've got my own match coming up."

----

It took her forever to find them; this neck of the hospital was dank and misplaced, like the decapitated hall of a grim factory, perhaps akin to the grim labryinths of death from _The Jungle;_ nothing potentially safe came from it.

She fingered the door open in her usual, silent manner, and found herself gazing into a room occluded by grim clouds. Gai, standing beside a stern-looking woman with pained and yet ceaselessly strong eyes, simply looked at her, his expression that of a man trying to hold a bridge together with only his hands. The mousy intern, the pig- everyone was staring at her, the turd in the punchbowl. Had she wandered into where she didn't belong?…

But Lee didn't see her. He just pulled the jumpsuit over his bared shoulders, took his crutch, and tacked right past her into the latent, murderous intent of the dark corridors.

The absence of his hope needed no articulation. He had just seen Tsunade, the only hope for the retrieval of that dream they'd all been hoping would stay at bay.

* * *

**AN: My poor sad Lee-kun. :,( _The Jungle_, if you don't know, is something you should have read in-utero. **

**Good thing there'll be no Lee/Suzu in this story..._this one_, I mean. That was a really lame hint, so because I promised, I'll tell you this rich little tidbit about the next story:**

**You won't believe the kind of horrors Tenten will face as she follows Ryuuichi; it's gonna get _bloody_ traumatic and positively pregnant with poigancy.**


	11. Leviathan

**A/N: ... WAAAHHH!! *grabs PandaGirl105 and JediGoat and gives them death hugs* I'M SO SORRY, EVERYBODY!**

**Life has just...not been very nice lately. The virus my computer got was the least of my worries this week, to say the least. But for now I don't have access to dA, and barely any to this site. I know nobody's been waiting with baited breath or anything, but I'm sorry to have unsurped everyone's joy of getting another review or beta imput. Sumimasen ka?**

**Ah, and as for 'Currents'- the second installation of the Team 14 series- I had a bit of affliction about some of the violence and rewrote nearly the entire thing...two weeks ago. Toned it down a bit, but it's still good, trust me!**

_

* * *

_

_Fingers boring into the flesh over her mouth, Suzuki wandered into the deep lavender that stretched endlessly before. She could feel her heart in her shoes, her spirit in her mouth, trying to explode out and reach for something._

_She stopped just short of the tiled-roof overhang, and nestled down against the clay on her bare knees. Waiting. _

----

She said yes, and it wasn't at all real. They made plans, they stared into each other's faces dumbly, and none of it was real to her.

It would, unfortunately, become the unforgiving reality which the ones Tenten had formerly called friends would strike and sink to bottomless places upon, like unsuspecting ships.

----

Some time later, because it didn't seem to exist but in the passage from live leaves to dead mulch, Kabuto came sauntering back into town. And Hirako was waiting for him at the gate, somehow defying the presence of the paranoid but sleep-lulled guards they knew suspected not a thing. The light sang off the concealing, satanic orbs that shaded his eyes, and Hirako remembers having a flash of how truly, truly evil this man was.

Uncrossing his good arm, the little Kaguya walked as purposefully as someone with as few years and as much sorrow as he had known could. He never stopped staring into the expressionless void which yawned in the mouths of predators, where Kabuto's eyes were supposed to be.

He accepted the _washizuki_ that the gloved hell-maid held before him, and tucked it stiffly into the broad pocket of his navy-blue shirt, nothing in his chest but an unfeeling, still fist of stone.

"Destroy him," Kabuto reminded him with a smile. "It's the only way I'll let Kimimarou live."

----

Vision field, scant- plains, endless. What could go wrong: everything.

But Neji stood beside them either way, wondering if he went for Naruto, for Sasuke, or pathetic, pitiable sheen in Sakura's tearful and unseeing eyes.

The Sasuke Retrieval Squad, only so long after their baptism by fire in the Exams, were charging out to find what rocks and forms darkness hid beneath; the ones who were made of things they could never imagine, in the full knowledge that they might die. Die. Cease to exist, suffer pain unlike they had ever experienced before, and _lose-_ fall. Never rise again.

Never. Again.

As Naruto led them, chakra screaming from the small sandal prints they left in the huge world, Neji smirked; nah, it was all for himself.

----

Suzuki was the one who found the lump of dirtied linens beneath the hospital blankets masquerading as her friend; she had been half-certain that it was going to happen, and as Gai had a panic attack in front of Tsunade over the _sake_ bottle Lee had accidentally taken with him, the tow-headed girl just stood in her usual way, staring in her usual way.

But her chest felt anything but the same as it had. There was a pathetic little warbling, a bleeding bleating, and only two things floating in her head:

_Gai waved her down, much to hers and Lee's surprise. Suzuki hadn't had the slightest idea of how to enter the moment, as badly as she sensed she needed to, and Lee was horrified that anyone had seen him weeping and doubting himself. She alighted from the tiled roof of the terrace, where they had nearly not heard her quiet feet, and the two teens stared at each other for the longest time; Lee sniffled several times. His eyes were swollen and honest in a way that made her stomach ache; but she knew her own shone with some strange new recognition, making her look just as foolish. They just looked at each other, through each other; then she had put an arm carefully around his waist, and buried her face and her trust in his thin swallow-chest. Gai proceeded to pick them both up as though they weighed no less than chopsticks, sandwiching Lee in a complete embrace of people who would die without him. The infernal three of them had found something very important, he knew. _

And:

_From another vantage point, she saw the thick tears in Sakura's eyes; she heard her begging, pleading to Naruto and heaven that her dear Sasuke-kun could be brought home. This was no retrieval, Suzuki knew- it was a rescue, a mission to liberate Sasuke from himself. Not knowing the special strands which ran between the whiskered child and that fay, trying girl, she had kept a careful distance. Naruto would give, and he might end up giving everything for this girl whom he so passionately cared for. _

_And she saw, in his jaw set and his gaunt face, that Lee was no different. They had that same fervor, that same fever burning in their faces: a desire to shield her which was nearly overpowering in it's expression. Lee and Naruto loved Sakura- not by the foolish guidelines of pubescent affection, but in a valve of themselves that Suzuki had tried to shut down. Whether they had feet to walk on or not, they were going into the field for her, for what she wanted enough to weep for; it was without question or reticence in their minds, stunning and beautiful and confounding in it's simplicity._

_They were willing to give everything for her. And suddenly, Suzuki realized that she was finally, sparklingly ready to do the same. _

These events having transpired, Suzuki flew out the double doors of the hospital to repay all the people who had loved her the same.

_----_

A quartet of shadows, they had bounded through the clandestine trees with no misgivings towards fear.

Hirako had covered the rear, his brown tassels flying and his pulse in his ears; the butterflies in his stomach were molting from their cocoons, and beating against his entrails with their new, papery wings. He wondered what Kimimaro looked like, if he would be worth all the things he had paid down for this opportunity. It all seemed too much for one child older than his years; he was finally, finally going to locate the brother he had lost so long ago; he was going to see how lost they truly were from another.

Tenten, in the middle as ever, had kept her eyes focused on the curve of their leader's neck to keep from bailing back out and running home. The sheer shock of departing had her by the throat; her every footfall seemed to weigh heavily, like stones marking the tallies of a debt she could never repay. She was never coming back- the more she told herself, the sicker she got of the whole idea. So she just watched, kept moving mechanically and followed in his footprints once more.

And Ryuuichi, as untypifiedly expressive and mysterious as we have thus known him to be, flew along with gleeful thoughts of the other Genin who was following him, albeit for different implications than the two immediately behind him

"They took off in this direction." Ryuuichi called to the young boy when they had to slow for the sheer overgrowth which consumed the untamed halves of the endless scape of trees.

"They have unique chakra signatures. You'll be able to trail them from here," he finished- and promptly dropped through the leaf canopy and from Hirako's life, Tenten in tow- at least for now.

Standing in the midst of a situation and a landscape a thousand times larger than he could imagine, Hirako began trailing the Sound Four- having come all the way from nothing, having found nothing, and ultimately chasing what would turn out to be nothing but trouble.

----

Ryuuichi dropped right in front of his face, so close that he could taste the beads of sweat that flew from Kazeki's lip when the blade met the soft give of his throat.

He was surprised that Kazeki had been able to dodge that quickly, and that his neck was tensed against the kunai at his neck; so taut that a dribble of blood escaped the topmost skin and siddled down, down, and struck the ground. It was the first drop to be shed, and hardly the last.

----

"Dog," he hissed, brown eyes glimmering with animal glee. His lips were an atom's caress from Kazeki's ear lobe, as though he were about to bite the flesh off. "Little puppy, Kazeki, still following at my heels and hoping for a biscuit!"

Ryuuichi lifted soundlessly to a nearby branch, which shook beneath his weight; they were in a dead part of the forest now, where, ominously, no life rang. Only butterflies hovered in and out of the dead, grasping branches, in great clouds of black and orange; if they were lost or mere spectators, their eye-patterned wings would hardly reveal.

Kazeki tried to make his own gaze as unspeaking. He simply glanced at the massive gap of space between the two of them, at the lecherous fall they could take at any moment, and how secure Ryuuichi still seemed. He was right at home, wherever he was; as long as he could smell death.

The quiet was shattered as the boy unsheathed, from his back, the mantle of a thick sword and flung it tempestuously over his shoulder. From her vantage point, Tenten gaped. It was the same blade that had separated her from the murderous Sound Shinobi back in the Forest of Death- only it suddenly seemed much less protective, very much like it's holder, and a lot more chilling to see bared. Placing her hands softly against the silent forest bodies at her side, the one with permanent bunhead narrowed her eyes and crouched close to the comforting smell of bark and decay. Kazeki spotted her, though, and called across the divide to her:

"Tenten, what the hell are you-"

His voice was cut abruptly off by the gale-force impact of the sword's guard striking his gut; Ryuuichi hadn't even used the blade. The gray-haired teen folded like a old bedsheet, and tumbled a good story before regaining his footing, this time on a lower, living limb of the towering oak. Ryuuichi had hustled down, leaping safely from dank limb to limb until Kazeki finally settled; his face had not yet altered from it's permanent, almost crocodilian smile.

"You're in the wrong yard, chibi." he shouted into the thick gray air, voice emanating upwards. "I didn't off you before, but if you keep stalking me like this, I might just change my mind."

From Kazeki's chest growled a cry, primal as the sun that had shone on their fathers: "Ryuuichi!" he shrieked, renting the sky.

"Yep, that's my name. Don't wear it out." the dark-haired Nuke-nin advised smilingly.

"Fuck you!" Kazeki shouted with a ferocity that actually rendered him fearful, flinging off the whole of the universe in the statement. "You're not leaving here alive!"

"Think so, huh?" Ryuuichi crowed back. The resound of his blade meeting the stiff, living tree trunk echoed as if through canyons, causing Tenten to startle. She couldn't see at all what was going on, only hear their garbled intimidations curling up through the midafternoon mist.

"Last I recall, you couldn't even draw a kunai without stabbing yourself!" sang down to where Kazeki stood, feet apart in expectation.

Small sounds teased from above; he dodged, fleeing higher into the tree canopy. The specter of Ryuuichi bounded easily along after him, stopping when he stopped, but not needing to desperately catch his breath as Kazeki did.

"Little Brother Kazeki, piddling after me in the Academy." came from an entirely different direction than he expected; Kazeki stood his ground, listened for the minute whistle of Ryuuichi skipping over the skeletons of branches.

"Goddamn fricking famous Kazeki, falling down on missions, catching frogs and dreaming when he should have been training. So entitled!"

The kick appeared from blank air, and Kazeki's short-shorn hair scraped the bottom of Ryuuichi's steel-bottomed sandal when he dove to avoid it. His opponent vanishing, Ryuuichi stood and guffawed.

"Where's your big bad daddy to save you, now? Fucking kind of me to kill your teacher instead of him, huh? Especially because he RAN AWAY-"

"Shut up."

The ground shattered around Ryuuichi's feet, tendrils of air tearing like razored fingers across the boy's homely traveling cloak. Two-stepping expertly, the spiky-haired child avoided the other barreling, limbs of the Fuuton technique with more expertise; left, right, and back into the danger zone nearly on his back to allow the blast to slip harmlessly past.

Arm blades smoking, Kazeki stood with a fist raised to his old, old friend when the heady mist cleared, short jacket billowing against his heaving chest.

"_Your_ sins are yours to atone for, as are mine." he said quietly, never abating. "At least I would never use my father as an excuse to do what you did."

---

Whoever heard of a battle breaking just so one party could consume his medicine? Lee got his wish, though, and was rip-roaring wasted before you could say 'bottoms up'. Kaguya Kimimaro was holding his ground, watching Lee become more and more… um, volatile. And tipsy.

Lee's head, suddenly too heavy for his neck, fell ground wards and plunked loudly against the earth; dipping and weaving, though, the boy whipped himself back up into a standing position.

"Heyy… Whattya think yer doing in my field!?" he suddenly screamed, stabbing his finger in the general direction of Kimimaro's left flank.

Katana extended, Hirako sidled towards the pair with hesitance and fear; he met Kimimaro's gaze once, twice, and then turned towards Lee and clutched the braided hilt with both hands in a defensive position.

"Kimimaro, what happened to the other kid that was here?" the young boy asked.

"… Hirako." the elder Kaguya simply responded, his face altering not one iota.

"Lord Orochimaru told me I have to kill that kid!" he shouted, waving the blade at the menacing, stumbling form of Lee. "Where'd Uzumaki Naruto go!?"

"I BEFORE E!" Lee shouted back.

"He is pursuing Lord Sasuke." the white-haired teen said succinctly. "He went towards the Valley of End. Go. Now."

Hirako cast a troubled glance over his shoulder, towards the albino apparition he had seen in the shadows of cages. Kimimaro, his brother, the demon in the box he was told never to speak to-

"Kimimaro-kun…" he pleaded, brown eyes narrowing with welling sympathy. "I wanted to-"

"I know what you wanted." came the instantaneous reply. "I knew you, Hirako. Now finish Orochimaru-sama's orders. I will wait for you here."

With a nod, the young boy sprinted off into the trees; having inclined his head to follow the progress of his sibling, Kimimaro stiffly turned back to face Lee. The addressed was discerning that his wrist could flick back and forth, and was observing this phenomenon with such intensity that drool escaped the side of his cherub mouth.

"You have a very lovely daughter," Lee hiccuped. "Very lovely."

"Now, I'll be finished with you-"

"You dunno…zicxdeen- uh, SIXTEEN FLUID OUNCES!" Lee responded, slurping up his drool and plunging towards the bone-manipulator. Limbs and bone blades crossed in heart-stoppingly close quarters, evasions following counter taijutsu much faster than Lee had known they could be. The pair were matched for speed, but the brute rage and unpredictable movements of the Konoha-nin tipped scales to his advantage; Lee could not be clocked, as limb after limb contorted wildly and drove Kimimaro to a locked, blocking position, even when Lee was reducing to standing on his hands and kicking wildly at his opponent. It was all Kimimaro could do to evade, until a sliver of a moment appeared.

"Tsubaki no Mai!" Kimi cried, and plunged his blade forward with a new burst of speed. The flights of Lee's lanky body were infeasible to the sober Shinobi; there was simply no way to land a hit.

Luckily, there was a better alternative.

When Lee flipped backwards for a breath, Kimimaro tripped the wire snare that had been lain beneath his feet; as Suzuki's weapons slung across his chest in an 'x', the Otonin gave a savage shout and whirled, twisting the ropes against his bone blade; the result of this forceful step was Suzuki being dragged from her hiding place in the randy grass. Quickly gathering her feet, the girl wrestled to a reclined stance and threw her weight against the bond to the unshakable Kimimaro. She was grunting, searching for an opportunity to gain the upper hand and ensnare the vulnerable target- but Kimimaro held fast to the thin wires, so thin as to draw blood at his fingers, and waited for exhaustion; when Suzuki's grasp weakened, almost imperceptively, Kimimaro rose and flicked the weapons from her waxen fingers; within the blink of an eye netted the girl by her right arm, with a mere twist of the wrist. He now yanked the plastic stripe roughly between then, sending her careening into the air; she hit the ground hard, face-first, and rolled to a pause at Kimimaro's feet.

As the dust settled, Kimimaro faced the half-conscious Lee with triumphant posture.

"Will you still attack, with your comrade at my mercy?" he asked.

* * *

**AN: Don't worry, it's not going to get stupid or anything- Suzuki gets hers. Why must I be so cruel to my own characters, I wonder?...**


	12. Taihen

**Author's Note: -sigh- I should have quit while I was ahead. Alas, no loyal fanbase will clamor for this fic's continuance, even though I penned, in a fruitless spree of free time a few months ago, three sagas...what a reality. I just enjoyed a more enthusiastic fanbase before (and I actually met one of them at a convention), so now I'm moping.**

**But no one's reading this, so nobody knows what I say... **

**-whispers- I wish Karin would be barbequed in celebration of Lee's glory...andGai-sensei has a really nice physique! :)**

_

* * *

_

_It __was __stupid__, __just __like __every __great __vendetta __of __the __age__. __It __wasn't __even __noble__, __as __the __demise __of __the __Uchiha __clan __along __with __it's __tangled __webs __was__._

_Yoshida __Hashiro __had __died __a __traitor __of __Konoha__, __executed __alongside __the __common __criminals __of __uncivil __civil __felonies__. __His __limbs __had __fallen __off__, __one __by __one__, __and __then __they __took __his __head __with __the __executioner's __final __stroke__; __that __was __that__._

_He __had __deserved __death__; __and __that's __what __Gisuke __tried __to __tell __himself __when __little __Ryuuichi __hit th__e __ground __on __his __knees__, screaming to his father as his detached head somersaulted across the dusty ground; __when __Kazeki __clung __to __his friend__, __weeping__, __behind __a __wall __that __had __been __slowly __growing __up __between __the __Yoshida __and __Shigiri __families__. Gisuke__tried __to __gather __that __little __boy __up__, __and __be __the __father __that __he'd __watched __be __executed__; __he'd __tried __to __patch __up __the __black __center __growing __inside __his __son's __friend__. __Gisuke __had __done __his __duty __and __carried __the __Shinobi __torch __until __his __feet __had __been __eaten __off__, but being the one who had to turn in his childhood companion (Hashiro with cinnamon-sparkling hair, the genjutsu master on par with Yuuhi Kurenai) __but __by __the __time __it __all __blew __up__, __there __wasn't __much __left __of __him to support Ryuuichi__._

_Ryuuichi was never supposed to know who had blown the whistle on his father; but Gisuke knew that Ryuuichi knew, and Gisuke also knew that things were boiling down to a crisis. _

_He __was __simply __tired __of __being __someone's __father__- __and __on __the __fateful __mission __where __Ryuuichi __flung __off __his __masquerade __of __loyalty __to __Konoha__, __where __Izanagi __Minami __had __died __in __his __place__, __Shigiri __Gisuke __disappeared __into __the __raunchy __underworld __where __men __go __to__forget __their __lives__. __He __died __in __a __dumpster__, __which __he'd __thought __befitting__, __seeking __warmth __from __a __bottle __and __from __someone's __discarded __newspapers__._

_He __could __forgive what he'd done as feilty to Konohagakure__; __it __was __what __he __couldn't __do __that __killed Gisuke__, __and __that __was __carrying __on__. __And __so __his __child __grew __up__, __fatherless__- __and __without __the __one __age__-__mate __who __might __have __understood __what __that __state __was __like__._

_---- _

After noting what was before him for a few, delusional seconds Lee hiccupped and began scraping his feet like a bull preparing to charge. His coordination being what it was, he looked more like a Russian dancer in reverse. "Yer gonna- yer gonna…" Blinking his wide eyes several times, Lee suddenly expelled Suzuki's name with wonder and clarity.

"Nevermind me!" she shouted into the dirt. "Kill him!"

Lee blinked a few more times, before crawling to his hands and knees; somersaulting into her same position, he called, "Hey, Szuzuki… what are you doing down here?"

"What are you waiting for!?" she pealed, before Kimimaro's foot smashed against her temple and began to grind her face painfully against the rocky earth.

"The bus, of course. What're yoo waiting for?"

"For the love of god, Lee!-"

"God didn't say nuffin' about the, about the..." Lee asked her unconcernedly as this show went on, taking interest in his own wrist once more. "God didn't make the green beasts, the green beasts made... Hic! Umm…"

"I'll free your mouth in order to answer me: what is his technique?"

Suzuki gasped as her head was freed; her response, though, was to spit a mouthful of red dirt into Kimimaro's face and snatch simultaneously at his ankle. Grabbing for the end of her snare from his opposite hand, Suzuki used her captor's offset balance to flip herself backwards, regaining her stance as well as her weapons. Hand aloft, she studied Kimimaro's spavin-spiked arms as she scooted slowly towards her best friend. "… Lee?" she inquired, never taking her eyes off of their deathly opponent.

"BAP. Yes." Lee answered enthusiastically, craning his head sideways. After realizing that she was standing on the other side of him, Lee hiccupped and smiled as he located the wavering vision of Suzuki.

"I'M NOT-T-T DRUNK!" he shouted abruptly, balling his fists and swaying.

"I'll take that as an indication that this is Suiken, Drunken Fist." Kimimaro said, more to himself; without further ado, the tall man braced himself. In an instant bone spikes had ejected from the pattern of his thin ribs, dripping fluid in the grainy sunlight; the spiraling pattern over his heart darkened, branched out like the fledgling arms of a small sapling eating his thin flesh.

"Woah, woah, woah- wait. Waid." Lee called uselessly. "St-stop the room, I wanna get off."

"What is he doing?" Suzuki asked quietly; it's kind of funny how they're all talking to Lee like he's still reasonable, isn't it?

"Whyyy are we shpinnink arrrooouunnnddd!" he wailed in response, twirling limply.

"This is my kekkei genkai." the elder Shinobi obliged, graciously spreading his arms that she might further behold the anatomical wonder of his talent. Calcium-fortified armor. Geez. Someone's been drinking their milk…

"AGH-BAA, STOP TALKING!" Lee, by this time, had flopped into a stance more resembling of Bruce Lee than anyone is willing to admit. "You waida second, you fat, stoopid…" Lee then reached over and tried to snatch Suzuki's wrist in midair; failing, he grabbed on empty air for a while, until Suzuki took his wrist and directed his fingers to her arm.

"Sankyoo, baby." Lee said, turning to the purple-haired girl, eyebrows floating sweetly. "I needta buy yoo a drank sumtime…"

"Maybe later." Kimimaro suggested, to which Suzuki agreed; swinging beneath Lee and sending him careening into a full-on attack, the second half of this new pair let her wire play out in a wide arc which the young follower of Konoha's destroyer was obliged to quickly evade, on top of avoiding the graceless, flying feet of an inebriated Green Beast.

----

Tenten had sat back a mere inch, and found herself cushioned against Kazeki's heaving chest.

"Why would you?" he asked her with pause, the saber slashes across his face bleeding lightly.

Her gasp had been enough to alert Ryuuichi, though; with a swipe of the blade, he nearly took off both of their heads. Tenten felt the bits of hair pinned to her scalp being slashed free of their bands, so close passed the sword to her.

Kazeki bolted backwards with precision, landing upside a branch and slapping his palms together; without the former spark of apprehension, the boy's arm blades began to glow voraciously, chakra arcing across the polished surfaces.

"Ryuu- Kazeki, stop!" Tenten called helplessly, her voice high and eyes wide as she gazed from teen to teen.

"I will-" the shorter of the pair responded, before the other slashed at his light-footed opponent with enough strength to bring the limb he had stood on crashing down through the forest, demolishing a path in the canopy in it's wake. Kazeki bounced towards Ryuuichi, slung from another dead branch, and flung to swing at the vulnerable back; Ryuuichi ducked the kick, sweeping around to have an arm snagged by the blades Kazeki carefully whipped about, avoiding injury himself. Without effect, the dark-haired boy lifted his sword and brought it squarely down; the surface which they precariously clung to shattered, and Ryuuichi fell on Kazeki with blade pointed ground wards. As they thundered to the ground a dozen feet below, only a swift block saved Kazeki from being bisected; they were locked for a moment in this way, every muscle in Kazeki's corded body thrown against the massive guillotine blade which lurked less than a foot over him; then Ryuuichi put his foot on it, and stepped hard. Kazeki's own foot didn't escape the crunch, although he sprinted up with surprising athletics, and half of his left foot was nearly cut off in that moment. The forest rang with a scream of anger and agony, as without pause he plunged ahead again on this lamed foot. Ryuuichi was just waiting, sucking on the gash in his forearm, grinning.

"Good," he said, before throwing his blade like a spinning javelin to meet the approaching Genin.

What happened next was a sheer miracle; Kazeki skidded to a halt as he took in the weapon, and flung up his crossed arms in vague protection; steeled to the ground, the blade struck the length of his body at the transversal of his arm weapons, deflecting the attack but shaking him badly. In spite of this, Kazeki shot up and snatched blade's thick, wrapped handle as it careened away from him, swung to adjust to the weight and stood on his uninjured foot, pointing the thing towards his enemy while attempting to catch his breath.

"Who the hell have you been training with?" Ryuuichi whistled.

The answer was Suzuki: a long while had he spent learning evasion in close-quarters. Those strings could be death, and he had quickly learned that the only way to beat a person with a weapon was to render it useless or turn it against them. Now a virtual blockade of blades, Kazeki locked his right blade against his arm via their straps, and spread his legs, holding Ryuuichi's sword like a baseball bat; it was coming. And he was listening.

The attack from above nearly had him; there was only time to fling the sword in front of him as he dove, and Ryuuichi landed squarely against the deathly edge of the sword, crushing Kazeki beneath it's heavy weight. Only his shaking arm, protected by his stationary blade, stood between the soft flesh and the hungry weapon; when Ryuuichi shifted his weight, he weighted the sword so as to tumble painfully from Kazeki's grasp, dragging him head over heels into the dirt; but he was up in an instant, springing to his feet with a cry. He was slashing on air, though, for the dance he and the now unarmed Ryuuichi kept up was a rapid-fire string of misses and flying tendrils of blood from small cuts, Kazeki flinging his twin tools with the fervor of a mad man but the precision of someone who had waited for this day. "FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU," he shouted, even if the rasping hardly matched the tempo of his blows. At length of this exchange Ryuuichi stopped an attack by sacrificing his left shoulder, and spun around in order to grasp Kazeki with the good arm. Locking his chakra-fed fingers within the boy's eye sockets, Ryuuichi threw his weight forward and slammed Kazeki into the ground, face first, with enough strength to shake the trees for a thirty-foot radius.

In the high branches of one of them, Tenten clutched her shirt collar and watched with horror-filled eyes.

----

When Lee woke up, there was no air.

Kimimaro, sprouting horns and tails, was there; you better believe he was there, all-consuming and all-destroying. But Gaara of the Sand stood behind him, the sand crawling like insects over Lee's various wounds and scrapes; the pair stared at each other, monsters in their own like, with violent ill, and Lee knew that only one of them would be leaving this field alive.

One person. Suzuki-

As if she could read his mind, it was her who's small arms knit thickly around his neck- and her careful step which brought Lee down to the ground in a clatter, pinned down as Suzuki sat squarely on his back.

"Don't let him up," Gaara reminded her, stepping forward; Suzuki showed she had heard by clamping her knees against Lee's sides and snatching for his bandaged hands. With hardly a thought, Lee rose up and flung her off with a violence Suzuki hadn't anticipated; she was thrown several feet, and landed directly on her tailbone with a hushed shriek of pain.

Gaara gave him a look, before taking the job into his own hands; a ring of sand encircled Lee's sandal, tripping the taijutsu master flat on his face. He began to shout at the indignity of it all, before shutting up with the realization of how much pain he was in.

"Okay, go follow the little one," the Kazekage now decided. It was with an anxious look thrown towards them both that Suzuki went about this, trailing the path Hirako had taken roughly twenty minutes before. She was gone before Lee could pick himself up off of the ground.

By the time the bullets of bone began flying, Lee had convinced his captor that no supervision was required; he would sit and be good while Gaara took care of this guy. If Gaara had known how Lee had reached this deciding field in the first place, maybe he wouldn't have trusted him so much. Sure enough, the Suna-nin looked over his shoulder not a half a minute later and swore in a fashion typically unlike the Gaara we have known. Lee was gone.

----

Hirako was racing as though the ground would disappear beneath him, practically hyperventilating from effort. The blade at his side snagged awkwardly once or twice, and finally sent him tumbling back to earth. Mouth full of leaves, he bolted back up and continued the chase.

There had been blood, he knew; there had been violence and death and Kimimaro- his brother, finally standing before him alive, and he had left him. It was a mistake, he knew- he should have stayed behind and protected what he had so long pursued, instead of blithely following the command of Orochimaru.

Kabuto. No- Kabuto had given him this order.

It struck him so fast and hard that he bowled over again, blade dragging against the peat and shirt in shreds from the thorns about him; Kabuto had said he would kill Kimimaro if Hirako didn't find and destroy Uzumaki Naruto, but Kimimaro was here- Kimimaro could hold his own, against Kabuto. But not against…

The boy's mind flashed back, to an instant in time where a long-faced man lay upon cheap _tatami_ matting, heaving torrents blood from his mouth. That Kaguya had been thin, as bony and unhealthy-looking as Kimimaro had been. Yes, his brother did not look right-

Remembering what had become of that uncle, that family member with the rotting, coughing sickness that the Kaguya were so prone to, was enough to make Hirako drop the sword. No, no- this couldn't be happening, no-

But when he turned around, a young girl with wild hair and a sweat-soaked shirt was mere feet from him, growling with rage as she plunged forward to attack him.

----

On a cliff somewhere, a single hawk sat, beak tucked peacefully within it's wing. It reclined with great talons slung around the top branch of a scruffy, towering evergreen, secure in it's ownership of the forest enough to sleep in midday.

The bird awoke with a start, as the sounds of Rasengan meeting Chidori blew from across the mountains and valleys, forever echoing; as Kazeki and Ryuuichi struck the bottom of a canyon together and Tenten screamed, as a jungle of bones exploded up around the prone form of Kimimaro, his younger brother shouting his name out before the sobs froze in his throat.


End file.
